Seven former Chilean soldiers indicted for burning photographer alive at 1986 protest

Seven ex-military men were indicted on Friday in Chile over the 1986 killing of a photographer reportedly doused with gasoline and set ablaze by soldiers during a protest against then-ruler Augusto Pinochet.

The crime is considered one of the most grisly committed under the dictatorship of General Pinochet, who waged a brutal campaign against leftist dissenters both real and perceived.

More than 3,000 people died or disappeared under the right-wing regime.

An 18-year-old engineering student named Carmen Gloria Quintana was also set ablaze along with photographer Rodrigo Rojas, 19. She lived, but was horribly disfigured.

Six of the detainees were charged as suspected authors of the crime and the last as an accomplice, said Judge Mario Carroza.

The alleged authors are the former officers and non-commissioned officers that were in charge of the patrol that apparently set the youths on fire. The driver of the truck the others had ridden in is the accused accomplice, the judge said.

All seven were arrested on Wednesday after a former soldier came forward and testified about what happened during the protest march on July 2, 1986.