General (R) Carlos Prats, 59, former Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army, left the country for Buenos Aires, in his own words, "under hazardous conditions, in the early hours of September 15, 1973, having been warned in time that uncontrolled groups were trying to locate him to liquidate him, protected by the impunity afforded by the chaotic situation the country was experiencing." Days later, he would be followed by his spouse, Sofía Cuthbert, 56.

These words of Carlos Prats and others of his cited in this section of the Report, as well as every circumstance cited herein, are related to some other piece of evidence or some other well-founded presumption that this Commission took into account to reach its conviction.

Individually, not all have the same weight nor are they proven in the same way. Taken together, they have led the Commission to the conviction that will be expressed here.

In Buenos Aires, General (R) Prats knew he was being watched by informants who, as he understood it, "had traveled from Chile to find some indication that could affect his honor or that would allow them to exhibit him as a General in the service of Marxism."

In fact, during his stay in Buenos Aires, there were attempts at close surveillance of his activities and, in Chile and other countries, attempts at open or veiled criticism of him by agents of the State of Chile.

These motives weighed on the decision of General Prats and his wife to leave Argentina and settle in a country in Europe. To do so, Sofía Cuthbert de Prats requested the respective passports from the Consul General of Chile in Argentina in July 1974, informing them that they would be traveling to Brazil, as they narrated.

Her passport had been retained upon leaving Chile. General Prats' passport, being official, had expired. According to the general's family, only Chilean diplomatic officials knew that the Prats were attempting to make this trip.

They did not obtain the requested passports. The official explanations contained in documents that this Commission has reviewed do not provide a plausible reason for such a refusal or delay. Even less so if, as is on record, the Chilean ambassador in Argentina sent a telex to the Chilean Foreign Ministry, with the request to also communicate it to the Army General Command, indicating that General Prats had received a death threat.

This threat was a phone call that a person with a Chilean accent "with a forced Argentine accent," according to General Prats, made to him. In that call, the anonymous interlocutor mentioned the trip to Brazil, an idea that the Prats had only communicated to embassy officials, according to his family.

A friend of the Prats communicated this to the Chilean ambassador on September 4, 1974, and the latter immediately sent the aforementioned telex, all of which is on record with this Commission.

Weeks later, on September 30, 1974, at 00:40 hrs., as General Prats and his wife were preparing to park their car in their parking space on Calle Malabia, a remote-controlled bomb placed under the gearbox exploded violently, instantly killing both occupants.

This Commission has been able to gather abundant information regarding this act of terrorism that cost the lives of General Carlos Prats and his spouse, Sofía Cuthbert. In reporting this information, reference is made to specific individuals.

However, the Commission has adhered to the rule of not directly identifying alleged individual perpetrators, except in its communications, when appropriate, to the courts of justice, for the reasons already explained in this same Report.

The application of such a rule in this case leads to a more complex narrative, but it is indispensable if each part of the Report is to remain consistent with the decision made by the Commission.

Among the information regarding the Prats case is the following: Study of the file of the criminal proceedings being investigated for these events in Argentina. Study of the file formed on the occasion of the processing of the extradition request made by the government of Argentina to the government of the United States of America, to extradite to Argentina the former DINA agent referred to later.

Study of various other relevant judicial actions before courts in the United States. Testimonies and expert reports on the car explosion that cost the lives of the Prats couple and its comparison with the car explosion that took place in September 1976 in Washington, D.C., which cost the lives of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit.

Public and private documents, as well as testimonies, including statements made in confidence before this Commission, in Chile and abroad, concerning: trips by DINA agents, insofar as such trips are relevant to this case; other actions of the DINA in Chile and abroad; communications and statements by DINA agents regarding such actions abroad and specifically regarding the Prats case; communications and other actions of the government of Chile regarding those actions in general and aspects relevant to the Prats case in particular.

Having weighed this background information, the Commission has reached the conviction, in good conscience, that General Carlos Prats and his spouse Sofía Cuthbert were killed, in violation of their human rights, by a terrorist act for which agents of the State of Chile, who are well-founded to be presumed to have belonged to the DINA, are responsible.

This conclusion is reached taking into consideration, among other background information, the following:

– The judicial investigation conducted by the Federal Judge in Argentina, in which two officials belonging to the DINA are involved. On April 11, 1983, preventive detention was ordered, and a request was made to the United States Government for the extradition of one of these DINA agents, as he was found to be, in principle, responsible for aggravated homicide in conjunction with the use of a false public document.

This agent, a United States national, sometimes used a false American passport under the name Kenneth Enyart. On May 15, 1989, in the same proceedings being carried out by the Argentine Justice system, an indictment and arrest warrant were issued against a second DINA agent for his participation in this double homicide.

This person, a Chilean national, resided in Argentina during those years, and it is abundantly proven that he performed important functions for the DINA from Buenos Aires.

– The DINA agent who sometimes traveled under the name Kenneth Enyart confessed before the United States Justice system in 1978 to having placed the bomb that caused the death of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit in September 1976.

This agent entered Buenos Aires under the name Kenneth Enyart weeks before the attack and left Argentina, as is reliably recorded, hours after the attack, that is, on September 30, 1974, heading to Uruguay, from where it is reliably recorded that he entered Chile on October 1 of that same year.

It is also on record that the DINA agent who lived in Buenos Aires, already mentioned, also left Argentina that same day.

– The agent who used the passport under the name Kenneth Enyart was expelled from Chile on April 8, 1978, at the request of the United States government, for being involved in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffit, perpetrated in that country.

From the actions related to that expulsion by Chilean and American authorities and their legal representatives, and from the various proceedings and judicial processes that took place in the United States from that date until very recently, the following relevant facts are on record:

There are testimonies that, in the opinion of this Commission, prove that shortly before the expulsion of this DINA agent from Chile, representatives of the government of Chile requested that the United States government send them a letter formalizing its request that he be expelled.

Such a letter—the representatives of the government of Chile requested—should state, among other charges, that the aforementioned agent had used a false American passport under the name Kenneth Enyart to enter Chile, but it was expressly requested that it not be mentioned in that letter that he had used that passport to enter other countries as well.

– That the government of Chile signed an agreement with the District of Columbia Prosecutor of the United States on April 7, 1978, by which the use that could be made of the information obtained in the investigation of the Letelier case in relation to the actions of Chilean citizens in the United States was restricted.

This agreement, together with the agreement by which the aforementioned DINA agent pleaded guilty to a charge in relation to the Letelier case, were later interpreted scrupulously in different American judicial instances in the sense of not allowing, or severely limiting, the questions that could be asked of that agent in relation to, among other matters, specifically the Prats case.

– It is on record from legal memoranda and judicial files that the aforementioned DINA agent was so concerned about possible questions regarding the Prats case during the investigations or judicial actions in the United States that, in such an event, he would invoke the Fifth Amendment of that country's Constitution, which allows one to refuse to answer a question on the basis that the answer could be self-incriminating.

– The Commission was able to learn of the testimony of an American citizen, given in court, from which it is clearly inferred that that same DINA agent confessed to him his participation in the attack that cost the lives of the Prats.

– Regarding the method, in both the Prats and Letelier cases, a bomb was used, placed in a similar part of the victims' respective cars. It has also been proven that the DINA had begun working in Buenos Aires in 1974, prior to this attack, and that one of its agents, as stated, returned to Chile from Buenos Aires hours after the double murder.

Finally, the Commission has not been able to formulate a plausible hypothesis regarding the motive that any perpetrator other than agents of the Chilean State could have had in the assassination of Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert, nor has it found any evidence to that effect.

On the other hand, the actions of such agents of the State of Chile, in Chile and abroad, particularly in Argentina and the United States, as well as the possibility that they may have judged that General Prats could become a factor of unpredictable political consequences for the Chilean political situation, allow for the formulation of a plausible hypothesis of motives.

The Commission emphasizes that this last consideration is of value only as further evidence and that its conviction rests on the entirety of the previous points already expressed.