(photo: Video reproduction)
Nine football players were detained this Friday (3/5) in preventive detention in Chile. Former Cobreloa under-21 athletes are accused of participating in the gang rape of a young girl in 2021, according to the Public Ministry.
The players are accused of raping a woman at a party on September 16, 2021 in the house where the young athletes lived, in the city of Calama, around 1,500 km north of Santiago.
The Public Ministry did not reveal the names of the athletes, but stated that they were all of legal age when the events occurred.
The arrests were made for “facts that constitute the crime of rape, committed against a victim, an adult woman”, said regional prosecutor Juan Castro Bekios.
After being detained in the cities of Santiago, Calama and Osorno, the athletes were taken to the Calama court. There, the charges were formally presented to the accused in a confidential hearing.
The court granted a period of 120 days of investigation before starting the trial.
At the time of the incident, the case was initially closed after the victim withdrew from filing a complaint. The Chilean team Cobreloa also did not take legal action because it considered that it was not possible to prove the abuses.
