Encyclopedia of Assassinations by Carl Sifakis

Author:Carl Sifakis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Letelier, Orlando (1932–1976)

In an event that shocked the Washington diplomatic corps, Orlando Letelier, the foreign minister of Chile during the presidency of Salvador Allende, was killed on Embassy Row when a bomb in his car exploded on September 21, 1976. The bombing also killed 25-year-old Ronni Moffitt, an American associate of Letelier in his position with the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research group in Washington. Letelier had been Chile’s ambassador to the United States, from 1970 to 1973, until Allende’s overthrow and death. Since that time Letelier had been outspoken in his opposition to Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

The Letelier assassination was laid to the operations of DINA, the Chilean national intelligence agency, and, for a time at least, it led to severely strained relations between the United States and Chile. In 1978 a DINA agent, American-born Michael V. Townley, confessed he had planted the bomb. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder a foreign official and served 62 months in prison.

In 1980 the Federal District Court in Washington concluded that the government of Chile and its agents were responsible for the deaths of Letelier and Moffitt and awarded their families more than $5 million in damages, which they were unable to collect. In 1987 another former DINA agent, Armando Fernandez, voluntarily returned to the United States from Chile, remorsefully declaring in court that he too had played a role in the assassination preparations. He said that at one time he had been held in detention in a military hospital for 14 months after the murders and was ordered by General Pinochet not to attempt to return to the United States. The U.S. Department of Justice agreed to provide Fernandez with a new identity.

In 1988 the Reagan administration presented a bill for $12 million to the government of Chile. The sum reflected the claims on behalf of the relatives of Letelier and Moffitt as well as the costs incurred in investigating the killings. The Pinochet government refused to pay. In May 1990 the democratically elected government of President Patricio Aylwin reversed the Pinochet decision and agreed to pay compensation. A commission was to set the amounts of payment but was not to investigate the question of who was responsible for the killings. While no longer president, General Pinochet remained commander of the army under the Aylwin government.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.