CHILE: FORMER SECRET POLICE CHARGED WITH 1974 ASSASSINATION OF GEN. CARLOS PRATS & SOFIA CUTHBERT.
Twenty-eight years after exiled Chilean Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife Sofia Cuthbert were assassinated in Argentina, a Chilean judge has indicted five former members of the Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the Chilean secret police that operated during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
Gen. Prats was Army commander in chief under President Salvador Allende (1970-1973) but was replaced by Pinochet in August 1973. Less than a month later, Pinochet led the coup against Allende. Prats and his wife then went into exile in Argentina; they were killed when a bomb planted in their car exploded in a Buenos Aires suburb on Sept. 30, 1974.
The Chilean courts opened the investigation in December 2002, and the Santiago Appeals Court assigned the case to Special Investigating Judge Alejandro Solis in January.
On Feb. 26, Judge Solis indicted retired Gen. Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, former head of the DINA; his second-in- command, retired Brig. Gen. Pedro Espinoza Bravo; retired Brig. Gen. Jose Zara Holger and retired Gen. Raul Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann; and the latter's brother Jorge Enrique Iturriaga Neumann, a former civilian agent of the DINA.
Four of the five men were indicted for aggravated double homicide; the fifth, Zara Holger, will be tried as an accomplice. Contreras and Espinoza were also indicted for heading an illicit criminal association, while the other three were charged with being members of the group. All have denied the charges.
Judge Solis denied bail for Contreras and Espinoza, saying they were "a danger to society." All the men except Jorge Iturriaga are already serving sentences for other crimes. Contreras and Espinoza were both sentenced in 1993 for their participation in the September 1976 murder of former Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his US assistant Ronni Moffitt in Washington, DC (see NotiSur, 1992-11-17, 1993-11- 19, 1995-06-02, 1995-10-27). They received seven- and six- year sentences, respectively.
Under Pinochet, Contreras created the DINA, the agency responsible for the majority of the 3,000 deaths and disappearances during the dictatorship. Contreras also was a key player in creating Operation Condor, by which Southern Cone military cooperated to track and kill suspected leftists in each other's countries (see NotiSur, 1998-10-30, 2000-07- 07). The killing of Prats and his wife was allegedly the first assassination by the dictatorship outside Chile.
Contreras blames the CIA for...
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