[A-List] Chile: past catches up with Pinochet

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Pinochet officers charged over car bomb murder

Louise Egan
Wednesday February 26, 2003
The Guardian

Five senior officers in the Chilean secret police during Augusto Pinochet's
dictatorship were yesterday charged with plotting the 1974 murder of a
dissident army chief in a move hailed as historic by human rights groups.

The murder of General Carlos Prats, General Pinochet's predecessor as army
chief, in a car bomb blast that also killed his wife Sofia in the
Argentinian capital Buenos Aires, was the first assassination allegedly
carried out by the dictatorship outside Chilean borders.

The Chilean judge Alejandro Solis told reporters he had indicted the retired
General Manual Contreras, who was head of the country's dreaded Dina secret
police at the time, his second-in-command, Pedro Espinoza, and three other
high-ranking spies for masterminding the double murder.

All have denied the charges, lawyers said.

Human rights activists said the move represented a major step forward in
bringing Gen Pinochet's agents to trial for human rights crimes, something
inconceivable in Chile 10 years ago.

"This is absolutely historic. This is about as high up as you can get
without touching Pinochet himself," said Sebastian Brett, a senior
researcher with Human Rights Watch in Chile.

Gen Prats fled to Argentina shortly after Gen Pinochet's bloody 1973 coup,
fearing that his ties to the ousted socialist president, Salvador Allende,
made him a target of persecution. Gen Pinochet, now 86, escaped trial in
2001 for human rights crimes carried out during his 17-year rule on the
grounds of poor health.

Mr Solis has made fast headway on the Prats murder case since it was
transferred from the Argentinian courts last December.

He issued the order to arrest and charge the suspects after questioning Gen
Contreras, 73, on Friday about the now defunct Dina, the hit squad that
official reports blame for most of the 3,000 deaths and disappearances of
leftists in Chile under Gen Pinochet.

All five men are under arrest and awaiting trial. Three who were already
under arrest in connection with other alleged crimes were denied bail
because they pose "a danger to society", Mr Solis said.

Gen Contreras has already been sentenced and completed a seven-year prison
term for orchestrating a similar crime: the 1976 car bomb murder of the
Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington.

The former spy chief blames the CIA for plotting the Prats crime, according
to his lawyer Carlos Manns, who added that his client will ask the judge to
summon former CIA agents to testify.

Many Chileans believe the CIA backed the 1973 coup that brought Gen Pinochet
to power and then helped him crack down on opponents of the dictatorship.

Argentinian courts have already sentenced a former Dina agent, Enrique
Arancibia, to life imprisonment for planning the Prats murder.