Justice will soon rule on the prosecution of the Isacruz cemetery bankruptcy case, one of the worst financial scams in our history. The case has a particular defendant: former DINA agent Mario Igualt Pérez, currently a fugitive in Buenos Aires, linked to the Prats Case and possessing an extensive network of friends in business circles. A double-edged trial.

Mario Igualt Pérez is nearing 75 years of age. At this point, his neighbors on Calle Alvear 833, in the north of Buenos Aires, see him as an affable old man who walks the avenues and waters his plants whenever he can, as his delicate state of health, including a bypass, prevents him from other tasks.

This is one of the reasons why the Argentine justice system has been unable to act quickly to extradite him to Chile. Igualt Pérez has been sought by Chilean courts since 1998 due to his leading role in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in Chile's economic history: the Isacruz cemeteries.

A fraudulent bankruptcy proceeding that has been based in the Sixth Criminal Court of Santiago for nine years, seeking to punish those who were accomplices in a star business venture in the early 90s, which at the time collapsed with 200 million dollars in debt, dragging down major entities such as Citibank, Banco Edwards, and Banco del Desarrollo.

The former agent, who fled the country two years after the bankruptcy was declared, is a deeply religious man, a daily mass-goer with access to bishops such as Jorge Medina. But the cardinal was not the only saint in the court he kept.

Secrets and Fortune

In 1978, he was arrested in Argentina, accused of espionage, along with the main defendant in the assassination of General Carlos Prats, Enrique Arancibia Clavel.

As recorded in the files of the Argentine federal justice system, he hosted in his apartment in the north of Buenos Aires some conspicuous visitors who requested "tasks" of him, among them Army Major Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann.

Too many secrets surrounded him, say those close to him, for someone who had a fortune that no one knew how he had acquired. A fortune he kept very well guarded in his Credit Suisse account.

"He is a very charming, very flattering guy who sought to be liked by everyone and almost always got everything he wanted," note some of those who participated in his countless businesses.

The Agent

Igualt Pérez was a clerk in the Road Department of the Ministry of Public Works during the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva in the 1960s.

In those times, he traveled abroad regularly, mainly to Uruguay and Argentina, where he ended up settling for a couple of years.

Meanwhile in Chile, his first cousin, Colonel Raúl Igualt, was accused of conspiring with General Roberto Viaux in the assassination of General René Schneider. Viaux was married to Delia Igualt, also a first cousin of the former agent.

After September 11, 1973, Igualt began to amass a small fortune by dedicating himself to finance: he managed loans and obtained commissions.

In one of his statements to the Argentine justice system, he indicates that his trip to Europe in 1975 was for these purposes, although some time later he would declare that at that time his friend Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann had asked him to contact some "figures" related to the German far-right.

In his constant comings and goings, Igualt made a special visit to another friend: General Manuel Contreras. He proposed to him the creation of a company to represent Codelco, an idea that pleased Contreras greatly, as the DINA coffers were facing serious difficulties.

Contreras did not delay in making contacts with the Ministry of Mining. However, the "business did not prosper," according to the statement of the man then accused of espionage in Argentina.

In the tumultuous 70s, Igualt did not waste time as an informant, meeting in his Buenos Aires apartment with "anti-communist fellow countrymen," as he himself called them, among whom was fellow agent Renato Maino and Iturriaga Neumann, whom he hosted in his house for two days. Igualt contacted both with a figure surnamed Luna, linked to the Argentine far-right.

"We can foresee that these events correspond to the first attempt to assassinate General Prats and his wife, which was frustrated," recalls human rights lawyer Hernán Quezada.

To act as an intermediary for the bigwigs of the DINA and the far-right across the Andes, Igualt was given two false identities, one of which was that of Alfonso Garrido Montt, the same one with which he was captured in 1978.

Due to Vatican mediation and the exchange of prisoners between Chile and Argentina, all those accused in the espionage case were pardoned in 1981. Some of them stayed in Buenos Aires, and others, like Igualt, moved to Uruguay, although he always maintained his residence in the Buenos Aires city. Since that year, there was no news of the former agent, but his network continued to operate.

The Scoundrel

His return to Chile in the 90s came hand-in-hand with new partners. Businessmen Francisco and Carlos Urenda, whom he knew from his MOP days, put him in contact with the other defendant in the Isacruz bankruptcy, Manuel Sánchez Carril, who had extensive experience in the operation of cemeteries.

It was Francisco Urenda himself who suggested he set up a chain of cemeteries in Chile, whose company was named "Intangibles Santa Cruz," just as Igualt himself recounts in the case file. From then on, the agent did as he pleased from the head of the board, buying new land, shares, and companies that increased his capital (see box).

Everything was fine until the scandal broke and the bankruptcy was declared in March 1996. Since then, Igualt Pérez was summoned to testify due to the multiple complaints and lawsuits against him.

That same year, lawyer Quezada, without having knowledge of the former agent's business networks, had a reunion with him at the First Criminal Court of Santiago, where he administered a questionnaire. With this, he tried to corroborate his statements made in Buenos Aires in the late 70s, where he claimed to have hosted Arancibia Clavel and Iturriaga Neumann in his apartment, as well as providing services for the DINA.

"We had a somewhat relaxed encounter. He wanted to flatter me with similarities in our surnames, since I am Quezada Cabrera; so he told me very nicely before starting the statement: 'perhaps we are close relatives because my mother was Pérez Cabrera.' I immediately realized that Igualt was a scoundrel," the professional recalls.

In that questionnaire, he denied any link to the Prats case. Although he admitted to knowing Arancibia Clavel, he indicated that he never maintained a relationship beyond that, even ruling out having been arrested for the espionage case in 1978.

In February 1998, the former agent packed his bags and left the country in the midst of the Isacruz process. Two years later, the Chilean justice system requested his preventive detention and extradition for the Isacruz case, and Interpol only apprehended him in 2002 at his home in Buenos Aires.

According to information from the Argentine courts, the fugitive refused to testify, claiming ignorance of the accusations. However, invoking humanitarian reasons due to his deteriorated state of health (hypertension, coronary dilation, existing bypass, emotional stress, etc.) and due to the continuous appeals of his lawyers, the process has been delayed.

Everything became more cumbersome when one of the professionals defending him died of cancer this year.

Today, the file is subject to a request for annulment due to Igualt's repeated ailments. And lawyer Quezada is studying requesting a new summons from the Argentine courts for Mario Igualt to testify in the Prats case.

"Since he is in Argentina at the moment and Judge María Servini de Cubría keeps the case open, he could be made to appear in her court. If he is extradited, Minister Alejandro Solís could also summon him to testify, due to the knowledge he may have had of the attack on General Carlos Prats and his wife," he indicates.

Source: La Nación, January 2, 2005

SANTIAGO, March 11.—This is a case that, although it dates back to the last decade, only this year had its main person responsible, businessman Mario Igualt, face justice to answer the accusations as responsible for the fraudulent bankruptcy of the chain of 19 Isacruz park-cemeteries, which involves unpaid debts of nearly US$ 50 million, although for some the total amounts border on US$ 200 million.

Although the crime occurred in March 1996, it was only in December 1998 that the Santiago Court of Appeals subjected the defendants Mario Igualt Pérez and Manuel Sánchez Carril (manager of Isacruz and partner of the businessman) to prosecution and preventive detention as authors of fraudulent bankruptcy. But by then, no one had known their exact whereabouts for months.

Mario Igualt was arrested in Argentina after entering that country from Uruguay. The businessman, along with Manuel Sánchez, were the administrators and owners of Isacruz, a company that in March 1996 declared the bankruptcy of the society (divided into Intangibles Santa Cruz, Administradora Santa Cruz, and Inmobiliaria Santa Cruz), after it stopped paying debts to the financial system for nearly US$ 200 million.

CURRENTLY

The case caused a stir in the business world due to the diversity of financial entities affected, the amount involved, and the characteristics of the scam it entailed. With both defendants prosecuted for their responsibility in the alleged fraudulent bankruptcy, not all civil and criminal responsibilities of the case have yet been clarified. _

Source: Economia.terra.cl, March 10, 2003

Businessman imprisoned for fraud; believed to have scammed US$ 200 million.

A Chilean businessman, sought for alleged scams of some 200 million dollars through the construction and sale of private cemeteries in his country and in Mendoza, was arrested by Interpol when he was leaving his apartment in Barrio Norte.

The police spent several days watching Mario Igualt Pérez's apartment until they saw him return from Uruguay. Finally, on Monday, they waited for him to leave his home at Marcelo T. de Alvear 800 and arrested him. The businessman lived there with his wife and a daughter, police sources said.

Interpol specified that it located Igualt Pérez because he had a foreigner's ID with his address.

The businessman, according to police sources consulted by LA NACIÓN, faces lawsuits from banking entities that accuse him of not having returned loans granted for the purchase of private cemeteries through the Isacruz group, of which he was allegedly one of the main partners.

Igualt Pérez built 25 private cemeteries through the holding company Intasan, which bought the plots from the Santa Cruz firm, which belonged to the same economic group, according to the Federal Police. These purchases, according to the sources, were allegedly made at values higher than market rates, through bank loans.

The cemeteries are located in Limache, Copiapó, and La Calera, in Chile, and one is located in the province of Mendoza, called Nuestra Señora de Luján. The property of the latter was bought for about 650,000 dollars and sold for around 2,400,000 dollars.

The company, according to the police, went bankrupt because there were maneuvers that deprived it of its assets, which appear to have been transferred to third parties in the form of payment for overvalued goods and services.

This money, according to the Federal Police, ended up deposited in an account that Igualt Pérez allegedly had in Switzerland. The damage caused by these maneuvers is about 200 million dollars.

Source: lanacion.com.ar, February 2, 2002

Chilean businessman arrested for scams in his country and Argentina

He was the owner of private cemeteries and here in Mendoza he allegedly had a project.

A Chilean businessman, who came to be the owner of 22 private cemeteries in Chile and Argentina, was arrested in the heart of Buenos Aires accused of carrying out fraudulent maneuvers in both countries for an estimated sum of 200 million dollars.

The information indicates that he would also have a similar project in the department of Luján, but authorities of that commune ignored such an installation.

Interpol of Argentina apprehended Mario Igualt Pérez, a 70-year-old Chilean, in front of his home located at Marcelo T. de Alvear 800, after trying to locate him for several months by order of Federal Judge Sergio Gabriel Torres.

Judge Torres, given the possibility that Pérez had escaped to his country, had requested the extradition of the businessman from the Chilean justice system in a case titled "Fraudulent Bankruptcy."

Igualt Pérez built 21 cemeteries in Chile and had expanded his business to Argentina, here in our province where the Nuestra Señora de Luján cemetery remained half-finished.

The fraudulent maneuver consisted of founding various companies that sold land, other goods, and services to each other at overvalued prices.

He also established the company Intasan, to which he attracted numerous investors, mostly Chileans, eager to participate in the private cemetery business, which appeared to be going to leave them juicy dividends.

Intasan, which had headquarters in Chile and Argentina, also had a large number of creditors, generally banks and financial institutions that did not hesitate to give credit to the company "in view of how well it was functioning" and the backing of the investors and the properties themselves that it acquired or was going to buy.

Because Intasan presented to the financial institutions, from which it received bulky loans, letters of intent for the acquisition of land, which it later did not buy.

That is to say, the loans lost from the start the fundamental guarantee, which were the real estate assets that were supposedly going to enter its assets, but in reality, they never came to integrate its active capital.

Igualt Pérez created, among others, the real estate company Santa Cruz, which bought land in Mendoza for cemetery purposes for a value of 650 thousand dollars and resold it to Intasan for two million 400 thousand pesos, which exemplifies the overvaluation that the businessman produced in the purchase-sale operations between his own companies.

In the same way, he artificially overvalued the payment for goods and services made by Intasan, which apparently went to third-party companies, but which the investigation determined belonged to Pérez himself.

"That bleeding of money, fraudulently inflated," explained the source, ended up leading Intasan to bankruptcy, with the consequent damage to investors and creditors, but which had one beneficiary: Pérez, the creator of those maneuvers.

The fraud caused a great stir in Chile, where most of the injured parties are, among banks, financial institutions, and private investors.

Interpol of Argentina notified its counterpart based in Santiago de Chile of the deadlines provided for Judge Torres to be provided with the necessary documentation and to proceed, if applicable, to extradite the fraudulent businessman to his country, where the scam allegedly originated.

Meanwhile, Igualt Pérez is detained at the headquarters of the General Directorate of International Terrorism and Complex Crimes.

Consulted sources from the Luján municipality denied that the Nuestra Señora de Luján cemetery is being installed in that department, as the information coming from the Capital indicates. Télam Agency.

Source: Los andes.com.ar, February 2, 2002

Special Report: Who is the Chilean repressor who resists being arrested for crimes against humanity?

Raúl Iturriaga Neumann was the head of the Foreign Department of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). As such, he is responsible for all operations, including the assassinations of opponents of Pinochet abroad.

The five-year sentence that he refuses to serve today is for his authorship in the kidnapping and disappearance of Dagoberto San Martín Vergara, one of the victims of the DINA's Purén extermination brigade. He may be passing through Argentina; he has the resources of the brotherhood of repressors.

Raúl Iturriaga Neumann did not flee only because he was given a five-year and one-day sentence as a firm conviction for the kidnapping of the veterinary medicine student of the University of Chile, former student of the Liceo de Aplicación and member of the MIR, Dagoberto San Martín (21 years old at the time of his detention).

The former general of the republic is in reality an inveterate criminal who is challenging all Chilean democratic institutions.

The former commando and elite DINA non-commissioned officer, Carlos Labarca Sanhueza, is the one who provides procedural background to contradict who was his boss in the Foreign Department. Given that Iturriaga denies that leadership and any link to the double assassination of the Prats-Cuthberts, Labarca states that "the head of the Foreign Department was Iturriaga Neumann." Other former agents also identify him as the Boss.

Head of the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert in Buenos Aires

Before Argentine judge María Servini and judge Alejandro Solís, "Uncle Kenny" (Townley) said in the United States that "it was Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann" who in Buenos Aires showed him the apartment where Prats lived on Calle Malabía 3359 in the Palermo neighborhood.

In passing, he also pointed out the car he drove so that he could install the bomb he prepared at the Hotel Victory where he stayed with his wife Mariana Callejas.

Shortly before September 30, 1974, the date of the attack, "Diego Castro Castañeda" - a cover name he used to enter Buenos Aires and prepare the crime according to a report from the Border Control Department of the Investigative Police - delivered 6 thousand dollars in Buenos Aires to the Chilean agent Mario Igualt Pérez.

This man was a cousin of Colonel Raúl Igualt Ramírez, convicted along with General Roberto Viaux as authors of the assassination of Army Chief René Schneider in October 1970.

The payment, according to Townley and other testimonies, was so that Igualt would contact Iturriaga with leaders of the Argentine far-right so that they would kill Prats. But "the Argentines were not capable," maintained Townley, the mission then falling to the department directed by Iturriaga.

Head of "Operation Colombo"

A year after the assassination of General Prats and his wife, "Giggio" Iturriaga returned to Buenos Aires disguised as "Eduardo Rodríguez Pérez" with a diplomatic passport. He traveled as a "merchant." His departures and returns were recorded in the aforementioned Border Control Department. Of course, now his mission was different: to organize Operation Colombo.

DINA agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, the only one convicted in Argentina for the Prats-Cuthbert crime, remembers that in 1975, Iturriaga Neumann contacted him in the Argentine capital.

"He told me that a Chilean subversive named Silbermann had to be made to appear in Argentina, because this had been baptized as Operation Colombo," confessed Arancibia to Judge Servini in the process in Buenos Aires.

It was about the communist engineer David Silbermann. In April 1975, the destroyed body of a person whose identity was said to belong to David Silbermann Gurovich indeed appeared in a basement in Buenos Aires, with a sign that said "Discharged by the MIR." It was proven that it was not his body.

But it was part of Operation Colombo. It was the dictatorship's setup to make people believe that 119 prisoners who were considered disappeared by their families had actually left Chile clandestinely and were killing each other in Argentina due to political quarrels, or dying in confrontations with military and police forces in that country.

The sinister "Project Andrea"

The development of Sarin gas, discovered by Nazi scientists during the Second World War, to convert it into an untraceable poison and thus use it in the elimination of political opponents, as well as a weapon of mass elimination in case of war, since at that time the situation with Peru was pressing or a possible triple confrontation including Bolivia and Argentina.

The plan to use Sarin gas was known as "Project Andrea" and three other experts participated, of whom only their code names are known: Gaviota, Canario, and Dag. One of them could be the biochemist Francisco José Oyarzún Sjoberg.

Sarin was tested at least twice: in the case of the assassination of the Real Estate Registrar, Renato León Zenteno, and then in that of Manuel Leyton, a security agent who had disobeyed orders. Its possible use to assassinate Orlando Letelier was also considered, for which a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume loaded with this gas was introduced into the United States.

It was in 1975 that the steps of Raúl Iturriaga Neumann as a DINA agent took him along the path of Sarin gas, over there at Vía Naranja 4925 in Lo Curro. "Giggio" did not want to be absent from "Project Andrea." Although he did not participate in the creation of the deadly gas produced by Townley and the biochemist Francisco Oyarzún Sjoberg in the house in Lo Curro, according to Townley, he was the one who bought the property to install the laboratory. "The house was bought from Angel Vidaurre by a company in formation, signed by Diego Castro Castañeda, an alias that Commander Iturriaga Neumann had," the American recounted in "My history of acting in the DINA," a testimony made by Townley in the hours prior to his expulsion from Chile on April 8, 1978.

The Purén Brigade

It was his own subordinates who threw him under the bus in their procedural statements. DINA officers and non-commissioned officers who played fundamental roles in each operation.

The Purén Brigade was purely operational and has to its credit the kidnapping and disappearance of dozens of prisoners, mainly from the clandestine barracks at Calle Irán 3937 in the Macul commune. It was known as "Venda Sexy" due to the sexual depravities committed by "Don Elías" and his people against women and men detained there. "Don Elías" was the cover name that Iturriaga used in Purén.

Marcelo Moren Brito, Gerardo Urrich, Marcia Merino (a MIR collaborator), Germán Barriga Muñoz, Manuel Carevic Cubillos, Manuel Mosqueira Jarpa, José Mora Diocares, Hugo Hernández Valle, Hernán Valenzuela Salas, Francisca Cerda Galleguillos, and Clodomira Reyes Díaz are among the former agents who contradict "Chico" Iturriaga, as his companions also knew him.

Some of them with abundant detail of the criminal actions of the brigade that "Don Elías" directed.

The five-year sentence that he refuses to serve today is precisely for his authorship in the kidnapping and disappearance of Dagoberto San Martín Vergara, one of the victims of the Purén Brigade.

After listening to those testimonies and evaluating other background information, Judge Alejandro Solís wrote when formalizing the accusation against Iturriaga: "Consequently, the participation of Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann as author must be considered legally accredited."

Cynical impunity as a banner

After he gave his soldier's word to Judge Alejandro Solís that he would surrender this Monday, he fled (it was learned today that he prepared his escape 3 months ago) and sent a video with his position, which was widely disseminated and endorsed by retired generals and officers, the so-called brotherhood of genocide.

"Openly I rebel against this arbitrary, biased, unconstitutional, and anti-juridical conviction, I do not accept it!"

Thus, with emphasis so that there are no doubts, General (r) Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann rejected the 5-year and one-day sentence imposed on him by the Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court as the author of the kidnapping of the MIR militant Luis San Martín Vergara, disappeared since 1974 after being detained by DINA agents.

The presiding minister Alejandro Solís issued an arrest warrant yesterday against the general (r), because he did not appear at the Cordillera prison, where he was to begin serving the first sentence against him.

"I have been convicted for the crime of kidnapping, a crime not accredited in the process. I specifically asked Minister Alejandro Solís, who sentenced in the first instance, to investigate the kidnapping, he did not do it," declares the general (r) in an extensive statement made public this afternoon.

"If the minister prosecuted me for kidnapping, he should have demonstrated that the MIR member Luis Dagoberto San Martin Vergara is alive and kidnapped by me. He has the burden of proof, it was not I who had to demonstrate my innocence. He had to demonstrate the crime he imputes to me, he did not do it," argues Iturriaga Neumann, whose current whereabouts are unknown.

In the statement, to which the general (r) asks to give the widest dissemination, he also maintains a defense of other retired military personnel who have been prosecuted and are being investigated for cases related to human rights.

"I was subjected to an undue process, just like approximately 500 members of the Armed Forces and Order, of which there are already several convicted for the same reason, before the complacent gaze of the government and institutions that do not function to defend the rights that we have and that we justly claim."

"Many judges and ministers of the Chilean Judiciary have openly and shamefully transgressed the Constitution and the laws of my homeland," he adds.

The disseminated statement has at the beginning an image of the Chilean flag containing the national coat of arms with the phrase "By reason or by force."

When reviewing his statements and analyzing his criminal record, it is appreciated that the pretended innocence of the rebel commando expressed in the statement he circulated on Tuesday from his hiding place falls to the ground.

This is because, in addition to Judge Solís's arrest warrant, there are three international arrest warrants against him. One, for the conviction imposed on him by the Italian justice system for the attack against the former Vice President of the Republic Bernardo Leighton and his wife, Anita Fresno.

The second comes from Argentina, where Judge María Servini de Cubría prosecuted and accused him of the crime of General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert. The last one is from Spain, where Judge Baltasar Garzón requires him for the assassinations of the priests Joan Alsina and Antonio Llidó, and the diplomat Carmelo Soria.

The logical question that arises is how a fratricide of this caliber remained unpunished for more than 30 years, or that during these 17 years of Concertación governments, only now, due to the historic demand of the victims' families, is the pursuit of these cowardly genocidals beginning, tepidly.

Source: revistazoom.com.ar, June 18, 2007

The DINA payments to kill Prats

In August 1974, the then head of the DINA's Foreign Department, Colonel Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, delivered 6 thousand dollars in Buenos Aires to the DINA civilian agent Mario Igualt Pérez, so that he would contact him with people linked to the Argentine far-right, to whom the killing of General Carlos Prats could be entrusted.

This [...] In August 1974, the then head of the DINA's Foreign Department, Colonel Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, delivered 6 thousand dollars in Buenos Aires to the DINA civilian agent Mario Igualt Pérez, so that he would contact him with people linked to the Argentine far-right, to whom the killing of General Carlos Prats could be entrusted.

This fact, publicly unknown until now, constitutes the first payment that the DINA made to prepare the crime of Prats and his wife.

The event occurred after, in mid-1974, the former dictator Augusto Pinochet met with the two main men of the DINA, Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza, and told them that Prats had to be eliminated because he had become a "danger to Chile" due to the influence he continued to have among the Army officer corps.

In Washington, although former agent Michael Townley confirmed to Minister Alejandro Solís on February 3 the second piece of information regarding Pinochet's meeting with the DINA chiefs, it is still unknown if he told him about the money to Igualt Pérez.

The payment of 6 thousand dollars was recognized by Igualt before the Argentine justice system when testifying in 1978 as a result of a process against him and former civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel, for espionage against the Argentine military dictatorship in favor of the Chilean regime.

Igualt, a cousin of Colonel Raúl Igualt Ramírez, convicted along with General Roberto Viaux as authors of the assassination in October 1970 of Army Chief René Schneider, fulfilled the assignment and met Iturriaga in a Buenos Aires café with a couple of Argentines.

Subsequently, as Townley also confirmed to Minister Solís, as he had declared in Annapolis in 1992 to the then Investigation sub-inspector Rafael Castillo and in 1999 to Judge María Servini who is instructing the Argentine process for the Prats crime, the Pinochet regime offered 20 thousand dollars to the Argentines to kill the Chilean general.

According to police report No. 161 delivered in 1992 to Minister Adolfo Bañados (who instructed in Chile the process for the crime of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt) by the now inspector prefect Rafael Castillo, who accompanied Judge Solís last week to Washington, that time Townley admitted to him that the 20 thousand dollars were paid to the Argentines "of the Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) or the SIDE (State Intelligence Service of Argentina)."

Always according to Townley, as the Argentines "did not have the courage to kill Prats," Contreras "entrusted the mission to the head of the DINA's Foreign Department, Colonel Raúl Iturriaga, for which he used the fictitious name of Diego Castro Castañeda, and to Armando Fernández Larios." It was then that the mission was entrusted to Townley.

Plaintiff lawyer Hernán Quezada told La Nación that the recognition that Townley allegedly made before Judge Solís "regarding the rewards to kill General Prats and his wife, confirm the background information that is in the process, which leaves Pinochet exposed in the investigation," before the Supreme Court rules on his stripping of immunity already granted by the Court of Appeals.

Return In 1992, according to Inspector Rafael Castillo's report, Michael Townley remained silent when asked if the 20 thousand dollars for the Argentines were received by Martín Ciga Correa, an ultra-rightist linked to terrorist groups.

Until now, 26 thousand dollars would have been invested to kill Prats. It is unknown if the Argentines returned the 20 thousand dollars, although at least Mario Igualt declared that "they tried to make me return the money they had paid me."

Source: lanacion.cl, February 8, 2005