The officer, hired this year at the Ministry of Defense, "sounded out" DINA chemist Eugenio Berríos to verify the existence of Sarin gas. He did so by order of the then-director of the CNI, Odlanier Mena, whom "Mamo" Contreras had wanted to poison.

Years later, he would serve as the control agent for former DINA collaborator Luz Arce, sending her to Uruguay under a false identity. Undersecretary Izurieta indicated that his employment contract ends this Friday. He added that he is a very capable professional who has not been convicted by any court for cases of human rights violations, "so he has the right to work."

At the Ministry of Defense, almost no one knows him. Very few know who he was during his military life. The fact is that Italo Seccattore, one of the advisors to the Undersecretary of Defense, Óscar Izurieta, is a man who keeps many secrets.

Seccattore entered the Military School in 1960. Twelve years later, he was already a polytechnic engineer specializing in electronics. He spent the 1973 military coup in the Telecommunications Regiment. Up to that moment, his career had been far removed from any shifts in intelligence or espionage.

However, when the DINA was created in 1974, Seccattore was tasked with a significant job: creating the computer system for the repressive service's archive of records, according to the Memoria Viva website and the book Donde están (Where They Are). He performed this work before the definitive technology was purchased from the company Comdat.

The DINA had two entry systems: one for lists of detainees over time and another for lists of the forcibly disappeared. Part of his work also involved issuing false identity cards and passports to agents.

It must be remembered that the majority of cases of the forcibly disappeared were the work of the organization directed by General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras, as established in the Rettig Report.

This newspaper asked Undersecretary Izurieta about the hiring. Regarding this, he explained that "as long as someone is not convicted or prosecuted by the courts, they have the right to work, because if we don't believe in the judicial system, then what do we do?"

"Italo Seccattore is a retired Army colonel who has been working on projects since the middle of the year and earns $1 million. For that money, I can't get anyone else. He is an engineer with studies abroad.

This year I didn't have the money to pay a market salary, and he is a very high-level professional. Besides, his contract ends this Friday. So for next year, I will hire other people, because now I have a budget," Izurieta told this newspaper.

In any case, this is not the only hiring. General Orlando Carter, son-in-law of "Mamo" Contreras, also received a salary.

SECRET MISSION

Once the DINA was dissolved in 1977, Seccattore went to work for its successor: the National Intelligence Center (CNI), where he also created the computer system for processing information on opponents of Pinochet.

When the Rettig Commission began to function during the Aylwin government, Seccattore reappeared in Arce's life. On that occasion, he recommended that she not say anything about what she knew. Without a doubt, a veiled threat.

The first director of the CNI was the then-General Odlanier Mena, a staunch enemy of Contreras. The latter, in fact, wanted to assassinate him using poison, according to the testimony of former DINA agent Michael Townley.

Mena knew of "El Mamo's" intentions, so he ordered Seccattore to "sound out" the creator of the DINA's lethal potions: the chemist Eugenio Berríos.

According to various testimonies in the proceedings substantiated by Judge Alejandro Madrid regarding the homicide of Berríos, which occurred in Uruguay, Seccattore went to the bakery that the scientist managed on Calle Carmen.

There, Berríos revealed to him the existence of Sarin gas and other poisons that were manufactured on Vía Naranja, in Lo Curro, a DINA barracks where the attack on the former UP Foreign Minister, Orlando Letelier, was planned. In fact, Sarin was one of the alternatives considered to assassinate him, although a bomb was ultimately preferred, which exploded in September 1976 in Washington.

With the information obtained from Berríos, Seccattore returned to Odlanier Mena and informed him verbally. But that was not all. He also told him that Sarin had been used on animals, as well as to murder detainees in Peldehue, according to the statement he gave before Judge Madrid in April 2003, which was revealed by El Mostrador.

Mena, meanwhile, in one of his judicial testimonies, asserted that he sent all the information gathered by Seccattore in a secret letter to Augusto Pinochet.

THE CONTROL AGENT

During his years at the CNI, Seccattore was also the control agent for DINA collaborator Luz Arce.

In her autobiographical book, El Infierno (The Hell), Arce recounts how he ordered her to settle in Uruguay—an order she complied with—under the false identity of Mariana del Carmen Burgos Jiménez, to later become the mistress of Argentine military officer Emilio Massera, an attempt known as "Operation Celeste."

"The orders from Chile were given to me by Ítalo. I remember that when I was still at Borgoño, Odlanier Mena came to see me to transmit instructions, giving me suggestions such as that I should become Massera's mistress in Argentina."

At the same time, when the Rettig Commission began to function during the Aylwin government, Seccattore reappeared in Arce's life. On that occasion, he recommended that she not say anything about what she knew. Without a doubt, a veiled threat.

In his resume, Seccattore also displays other jobs, such as the Army Intelligence Directorate; he traveled to Spain to take a course in nuclear energy, returning to Chile at the end of 1975, where he assumed the position of project manager for the Lo Aguirre Complex; he retired in 1990, having been Undersecretary of Telecommunications for almost three years during the military regime.

Those who know him assert that he is a very capable professional and that wherever he has worked, he has always shown good results.

"ACCIDENTAL TASKS"

Seccattore has never been prosecuted or convicted in any case for human rights violations. There have been several attempts to prosecute him, such as in 1992 when Patricia Barceló identified him as the officer who forced her to witness torture at a DINA barracks.

At the time, the lawsuit was intended to establish the disappearance of MIR militant Alfonso Chanfreau. In any case, it did not come to fruition.

If Seccattore's resume is astonishing, the description that appears on the ministry's transparency page is even more particular: "Perform accidental and non-habitual service tasks, to participate in the conception and design of a science and technology system, oriented toward the development of force capabilities, in the context of the policies issued on the subject by the Undersecretariat of Defense, with special emphasis on the design of the methodological model for the area."

Source: El Mostrador, December 29, 2009

Deputy Teillier: "It is the last straw that a former DINA-CNI agent is today a Defense advisor"

The president of the Communist Party, Deputy Guillermo Teillier, reacted with concern and annoyance to the information from the electronic newspaper El Mostrador regarding the advisor to the Undersecretary of Defense, General (Ret.) Oscar Izurieta, Colonel (Ret.) Italo Seccattore.

When the DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) was created in 1974, Seccattore was tasked with creating the computer system for the repressive service's archive of records. He performed this work before the definitive technology was purchased from the company Comdat.

"It seems to me that, as a news headline says, Seccattore's record is 'astonishing.' He is the current trusted secretary of the Undersecretary of Defense, General Izurieta, and he has a long history. It is said that he was the author of the registration system for all the detentions that occurred in the country, the torture, the places of torture, but it also records all the forcibly disappeared and their fate," the parliamentarian indicated.

The DINA had two entry systems: one for lists of detainees over time and another for lists of the forcibly disappeared. Part of his work also involved issuing false identity cards and passports to agents.

It must be remembered that the majority of cases of the forcibly disappeared were the work of the organization directed by General (Ret.) Manuel Contreras. Once the DINA was dissolved in 1977, Seccattore went to work for its successor: the National Intelligence Center (CNI), where he also created the computer system for processing information on opponents of Pinochet.

During his years at the CNI, Seccattore was also the control agent for DINA collaborator Luz Arce. In her autobiographical book, El Infierno, Arce recounts how he ordered her to settle in Uruguay—an order she complied with—under the false identity of Mariana del Carmen Burgos Jiménez, to later become the mistress of Argentine military officer Emilio Massera, an attempt known as "Operation Celeste."

In his resume, Seccattore also displays other jobs, such as the Army Intelligence Directorate; he traveled to Spain to take a course in nuclear energy, returning to Chile at the end of 1975, where he assumed the position of project manager for the Lo Aguirre Complex; he retired in 1990, having been Undersecretary of Telecommunications for almost three years during the military regime.

However, Seccattore has never been prosecuted or convicted in any case for human rights violations.

Deputy Teillier added: "I believe that for the first time, there is an acknowledgment that the Army kept a record of everything these sinister characters from the intelligence services of the time were doing.

Once again, in light of this, we are astonished that a character like this continues to act in the public administration under this government, in a position of such responsibility. And once again, the question is why the Army does not make this data known, why it refuses to provide it if there is a record with very modern elements.

Therefore, they cannot say that the data has been lost, unless they destroyed it themselves, but here we are being told that a record does exist. Furthermore, this character acted in missions such as that of the chemist Eugenio Berríos, with Luz Arce, whom he took to Uruguay and compromised in espionage activities for the Chilean military themselves.

There is something dark behind this, and I would ask the Army to truly clarify it," concluded Teillier.

Source: El Ciudadano, December 29, 2010