With the Supreme Court's ruling, the Prats case was brought to an end. Although late—because the crime was committed practically 36 years ago—and incomplete, the ruling carries significant meaning. While it did not manage to convict the former dictator Augusto Pinochet, the mastermind of the crime, the DINA depended on him as commander-in-chief of the army and the primary authority of the Government Junta.

It is unimaginable that its director, General (ret.) Manuel Contreras, could have decided on his own to assassinate General Carlos Prats González and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert. Nevertheless, the ruling that closes this emblematic case identifies the main culprits and imposes prison sentences on them for the murder of the former commander-in-chief of the army and his wife, and for the illicit association—the DINA—tasked with committing it.

In this regard, the sentence states: “It is established that members of the DINA, belonging to the Foreign Department of that organization, jointly developed a criminal project with the purpose of committing crimes against persons considered enemies of the Chilean military regime, the subsequent execution of which resulted in the homicides of Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert.” There do not appear to be any major developments in the judicial investigation, as the truth and the participation of the various actors had been known for years, especially through the investigation by the Argentine justice system.

The convictions affect practically the entire leadership of the DINA and its Foreign Department, headed by General (ret.) Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, and the second-in-command, Brigadier (ret.) Pedro Espinoza Bravo, who must each serve 17 years in prison for the double crime and 3 years and one day for the crime of illicit association.

Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, General (ret.), and Colonels (ret.) José Zara, Juan Morales Salgado, and Christopher Willike were each sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murders, and 100 days for the illicit association.

The civilian agents Mariana Callejas and Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, as accomplices, were sentenced to 5 years in prison, and the non-commissioned officer (ret.) Reginaldo Valdés received two sentences of 541 days each, which were conditionally remitted.

In a way, the sentence was a “supremazo” (a major Supreme Court intervention). The drastic reduction of the sentences—by half in almost all cases—and in the cases of Contreras and Espinoza to only seventeen years—after having been sentenced in the first instance by Judge Alejandro Solís to two life sentences for Contreras and two twenty-year sentences for Espinoza, and both to one twenty-year sentence for illicit association—drew attention.

Likewise, the application of “half-prescription” to Mariana Callejas and Jorge Iturriaga was notable. It has been explained that the Supreme Court considered the two homicides to constitute a single crime and not two, as considered by the first and second instance rulings.

The half-prescription would derive from the long time elapsed without any legal proceedings in Chile. The novelty was the configuration of the crime of illicit association, which could be invoked as a precedent in other pending cases.

The sentence raises questions. Was the DINA the only criminal illicit association of the dictatorship? Was the FACH's Joint Command, or the Dicomcar, or the Caravan of Death not also one? And if that were the case, and given the dependence that their leaders had on the commanders-in-chief themselves—who were in turn members of the Government Junta—could the Junta itself not be considered a criminal illicit association organized to exercise State terrorism in order to impose the dictatorial regime?

Ancient history

General Carlos Prats was commander-in-chief of the army until August 23, 1973, when he resigned and handed over the position to General Augusto Pinochet.

A few days after the military coup, Prats traveled to Argentina in search of refuge. Welcomed by the government of President Juan Domingo Perón, he settled in Buenos Aires with his wife. They led a normal life, without much visibility, dedicated to working, visiting a few friends, and Prats to writing his memoirs.

He was always under the surveillance of agents of the Chilean dictatorship. One of those agents was Enrique Arancibia Clavel; the others were almost always officers attached to the Chilean embassy. At some point, the DINA began planning the assassination of Prats, considered by the Military Junta to be a dangerous enemy.

Meanwhile, the Argentine situation deteriorated in tandem with Perón's health. General Prats decided to leave Argentina and requested his passport from the Chilean Foreign Ministry, because he did not want to travel as a refugee.

His request was postponed because it was planned that he would be assassinated in Buenos Aires. The agents tasked with doing so were two DINA agents, Michael Townley and Mariana Callejas. Townley placed an explosive charge in the general's car, which detonated in the early hours of September 30, 1974.

The Pinochet dictatorship disclaimed responsibility and “lamented” the assassination of Prats, which did not prevent him from being denied official honors at his funeral, which was held privately.

The Argentine judicial investigation was very slow but managed to establish that the double murder had been executed by Townley. He could not be tried or convicted because he was under federal protection in the United States for his collaboration in clarifying the assassination of Orlando Letelier in 1976.

The Argentine justice system established the responsibilities of the DINA agents and their bosses and requested their extradition to Chile, which was denied by the Supreme Court. There was no judicial investigation in Chile until the early 2000s.

That the Chilean courts—and the State—did not initiate any proceedings for the assassination of a former commander-in-chief of the army and former vice president of the Republic is a demonstration of the obsequiousness and cowardice of Chilean judges.

And also of the first two governments of the Concertación. It was necessary for the dictatorship to end, for Pinochet to leave his post as commander-in-chief, and for him to be imprisoned in London for the Chilean Judiciary to decide to act.

Within the army, the dictatorship prevented any attempt at an internal investigation, which should have been carried out starting from the end of Pinochet's command in 1998. But none of the subsequent commanders-in-chief, Ricardo Izurieta, Juan Emilio Cheyre, or Oscar Izurieta, ordered that still-pending investigation.

This makes the feigned surprise even more inexplicable when something that had been known for years emerged as judicial truth: that Prats was assassinated by his own comrades-in-arms, who did not even respect the life of his wife.

The CIA and the DINA

At least until 1977, the CIA maintained a regular relationship with the DINA. The North American agency collaborated in the 1973 coup d'état, as did the Pentagon. CIA agents helped in the preparation of Plan Z and the White Book, whose definitive authorship belonged to the historian Gonzalo Vial.

So it can be said that from the very moment of the coup (and before), the CIA was acting in Chile in conspiratorial actions, first, and then in support of the dictatorship.

According to the so-called Hinchey Report, from September 2000, “during the period 1974 to 1977, the CIA maintained contacts with Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, who later gained notoriety for his involvement in human rights violations.” The relations, described as “correct, but not cordial or placid,” remained stable, even after the reports of human rights violations that were the responsibility of Contreras.

In 1975, the CIA established a paid relationship with Contreras to “obtain intelligence,” making only one payment due to coordination problems.

Curiously, the Hinchey Report does not refer to the Prats crime, which caused a commotion and anticipated what would be Operation Condor, the joint action of the intelligence services of the Southern Cone dictatorships.

The CIA and also the FBI had agents in Argentina. It is equally strange that it did not reflect rumors that an attack against Prats was being prepared, which was known even in Europe by the intelligence services of France, the German Democratic Republic, and other States that informed circles of Chilean exiles.

There is still much mystery in the CIA's relations with the DINA, characterized in the Supreme Court's sentence as a “criminal illicit association.”

Repercussions The sentence was well received by the three daughters of the Prats-Cuthbert marriage, Sofía, Angélica, and Cecilia, who fought for 36 years to keep their parents' name alive and to ensure justice was served.

Thanks to them, it was possible to publish Memoirs. Testimony of a Soldier, on which General Prats worked until shortly before his assassination and which constitutes a very valuable contribution to history. The Prats sisters valued that, finally, a treacherous crime had been punished, holding its authors responsible and applying effective sentences that must be served.

The State has condemned the crime, and the army issued a statement in which it “repudiates all participants in this cowardly assassination, especially the military personnel who carried it out.” Adding that “with their extreme cruelty, they violated the principles that constitute the moral heritage of the institution.” The President of the Republic, for his part, reiterated those concepts at the Oath of the Flag ceremony in Antofagasta, adding: “This crime, committed by members of the institution itself, violated the most fundamental principles and values that constitute the deepest heritage of our army, for which many heroes gave their lives, including the heroes of La Concepción whom we have honored today.”

Unusually energetic were some statements by the commander-in-chief of the army, General Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba. “The act (of the assassination),” he said, “is absolutely inadmissible and unjustifiable, of a cruelty and cowardice without comparison,” and he emotionally invited General Prats' daughters to a reunion with the army, “the same army that their father commanded, which he dreamed of since he was a lieutenant, to which he gave so much, and which today must make itself present…”.

The Prats daughters met at the command with General Fuente-Alba, accompanied by his predecessors Juan Emilio Cheyre and Oscar Izurieta.

Stumbling blocks for the pardon

The Supreme Court's sentence complicates things for those who want to take advantage of the Bicentennial for a pardon that would benefit military personnel convicted of human rights violations. Having just been convicted, it would be a mockery if Contreras, Espinoza, Iturriaga, and their co-authors and accomplices were released.

Even more so when the sentence has brought to the forefront one of the most brutal and symbolic crimes committed by agents of the dictatorship. Awaiting the proposal that the Church has committed to making, the President of the Republic hesitates.

He perceives that a pardon for the criminals has no political space. Pressured by the right, he understands that not doing so would have a cost for the normal functioning of the Alliance. He is also affected by the fact that during the campaign he promised retired military personnel that he would “provide a solution” to former officers serving prison sentences.

What worries him most is that his government would be “stained” with Pinochetism, complicating his strategy of approaching the political center.

Opposition to the pardon for the military is in the majority, not only in the Left sectors. The Concertación has been categorical: “We will not accept the use of the excuse of the Bicentennial of our independence to pardon human rights violators,” said Senator Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle at a memorial event for General Prats.

The Bicentennial pardon has become the great objective of Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz before handing over the Archbishopric of Santiago at the end of September, but he is aware that success is not guaranteed.

The right insists on its request for a broad pardon for civilians and military personnel. In the weekly The Clinic, historian Patricia Arancibia Clavel, in an article titled “The Pardon and Concord,” concludes: “The Bicentennial has placed the pardon requested by the Church to President Piñera in the dilemma of accepting or rejecting it.

Accepting this request without making a distinction between civilians and military personnel will be an opportunity for President Piñera to show all Chileans that we have left discord behind.” The article is suggestive because its author belongs to a family of military and naval officers.

Two of her brothers reached the highest ranks in the army and the Navy. And a third, Enrique, a DINA agent, served a long sentence in Argentina as one of those responsible for the assassination of Prats.

More significant was the opinion of the commander-in-chief of the army, General Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba, who, without pronouncing himself on a matter that is not within his competence, considered that it would seem “positive” to him if the Church's proposal contributed “to clemency” and had “a humanitarian character regarding people who may be deprived of liberty at an advanced age or are ill.” Will this be the door that they intend to leave ajar?

The history of fictitious illnesses and decrepitude that Pinochet displayed fuels that concern.

Source: puntofinal.cl, July 23, 2010

Mr. NARANJO.— Mr. President, the Army announced that on June 5 it will proceed to carry out the greatest act of recognition for its assassinated former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Carlos Prats.

That same day, the General Carlos Prats González San Bernardo Military Camp will be inaugurated. The so-called “military camps” are part of the army's modernization process and aim to group various military units together in order to optimize their resources and operational capacity.

Currently, there are four such military camps. Among them, the General René Schneider Chereau La Reina Military Camp, which bears the name of the man who was assassinated by an extreme right-wing commando in October 1970 to prevent Salvador Allende from assuming the Presidency of the Republic.

It is true that the Army, once General Pinochet passed away, began to carry out acts of reparation for General Prats. An example of this situation occurred in 2002, when the then Commander-in-Chief of that Institution, General Juan Emilio Cheyre, led a mass in his honor at the Military School.

However, naming an Army facility the General Carlos Prats González San Bernardo Military Camp will be the most important gesture by this Institution, due to its implication for both civil and military society.

Indeed, with this act, the Army fully vindicates its former Commander-in-Chief, and therefore, his figure, his doctrine, and his legacy become an example to follow for those who are and will be part of this Institution and of all the Armed Forces and Public Order forces.

Mr. President, some have questioned the inclusion of the Tacna Regiment in that military camp, recognized because human rights were violated within it, mainly against those who were detained inside the La Moneda Palace on September 11, 1973, who, after being savagely tortured, were executed by firing squad and forcibly disappeared.

To this must be added a previous event: the so-called “Tacnazo,” which occurred on October 21, 1969, when General Roberto Viaux Marambio entrenched himself there, in what some have considered an attempted coup d'état.

But let us be realistic, Mr. President. There are many regiments where human rights were violated; perhaps in the majority of those that exist. Therefore, to be fair, one would have to change the names of almost all of them.

It is true that the circumstance of the Tacna Regiment being part of the aforementioned Military Camp tarnishes the ceremony in part. But what must prevail in this case is the reparation for General Prats, who once and for all ceases to be proscribed within the Army he served so much, loved, and for which, in the final instance, he gave his life along with his wife, Sofía Cuthbert.

However, for the reparation to be total, two very significant steps remain, in one of which it will be up to the Army to assume an important role. The first is for the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court to ratify the convictions for his crime and that of his wife, committed on September 30, 1974, in Argentina.

That is, to convict Manuel Contreras, Pedro Espinoza, Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, José Zara Holger, Christoph Willeke Flöel, José Morales Salgado, all former Army officers; Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón, a non-commissioned officer; and the civilians Mariana Callejas and Jorge Iturriaga Neumann.

The second is that, once the convictions are ratified, the Army proceed to degrade and strip away all the privileges that, as former officers, the murderers still maintain. This decision would be the greatest moral condemnation by the Army toward the murderers of its former Commander-in-Chief.

And it is the least that we Chileans expect from that Institution, which belongs to us all. Mr. President, I want a copy of this speech to be sent to the Minister of Defense, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and the family of General Prats. Thank you very much.

Source: bcn.cl, September 13, 2019

The Ninth Chamber of the Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed in all its terms the convictions handed down in the first instance by Judge Alejandro Solís on June 30, 2008, against nine former DINA agents, including its chief Manuel Contreras, for the double homicide of General Carlos Prats and his wife Sofía Cuthbert.

The double crime was committed in Buenos Aires in the early hours of September 30, 1974, by installing a bomb in the car of the former commander-in-chief of the Army. The general's daughter, Angélica Prats, said at the courthouse that “we are moved as a family because the Court has confirmed all the convictions applied by Judge Solís.” However, she warned that “now we hope that the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court does not reduce the sentences.” With this, she alluded to the fact that, for about three years, this court has been benefiting all former agents with considerable sentence reductions, which allows them to be granted the benefit of serving them under five years and one day in the “supervised release” regime. Among human rights organizations, there is the question of whether this time the ministers of the Criminal Chamber “will dare” to also benefit the murderers of the general and his wife. Of the nine sentenced, only Manuel Contreras, the former second-in-command of the DINA, Pedro Espinoza, and the former foreign chief of this criminal illicit association, General (ret.) Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, are in prison serving other sentences. The others judicially punished are Brigadier (ret.) José Zara Holger, Colonels (ret.) Christoph Willikie Flöel and José Morales Salgado, non-commissioned officer (ret.) Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón, and civilian former agents Mariana Callejas Honores (former wife of Michael Townley, who detonated the bomb along with Callejas) and Jorge Iturriaga Neumann. The resolution was adopted unanimously by the Ninth Chamber, composed of judges Jorge Dahm and Mario Rojas, and magistrate Dobra Lusic.

Source: Lanacion.cl, January 29, 2009

First step in justice for the Prats-Cuthbert crime

When, near one in the morning on Monday, September 30, 1974, General Carlos Prats stopped his car next to his wife Sofía Cuthbert to pull it into the garage on Calle Malabía, in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, a few seconds could have saved their lives.

It was the brief interval in which DINA agent Mariana Callejas failed to activate the electronic detonator when her husband, the “gringo” Michael Townley, at her side inside a vehicle, gave her the order to kill.

Townley was more skilled and took the device from her, causing the explosion that shook the dark street. The general and his wife never knew about those seconds of destiny. Thirty-four years later, yesterday, the sword of justice finally fell upon the intellectual and material authors, six high-ranking officers and one non-commissioned officer of the Army, all retired, in addition to two civilians.

Two life sentences and prison terms between 20 years and 541 days for all of them, dictated in the first-instance sentence by the investigating judge of the case, Alejandro Solís. At 10 in the morning, the general's daughters, Cecilia and Angélica, arrived at Judge Solís's office, along with lawyer Pamela Pereira.

The other daughter, Sofía, is the current ambassador in Athens. The other plaintiff lawyer, Hernán Quezada, is in New York for two years. Half an hour later, upon leaving the simple office on the terrace of the Palace of Tribunals, the shining eyes of the three women showed the emotion experienced with the judge. “Now the country knows the truth,” said Angélica.

Cecilia recalled the early days in Buenos Aires when Judge María Servini was initiating the first inquiries that concluded with a single convicted person, the civilian agent Enrique Arancibia Clavel. Later, in 2002, the double crime began to be investigated for the first time in Chile.

Lawyer Pereira also had reasons to be moved, as she remembered her father, who was assassinated along with the peasants of Paine. “This act of justice for General Prats, his wife, and his family symbolizes the justice that other relatives have not yet had in Chile, as is the case with my father,” she noted.

But as the daughters of the murdered couple remembered, the dictator Augusto Pinochet was missing from the appointment. He was the main mastermind, even though, first with his pretended dementia with which he deceived the court judges, as some ministers privately acknowledge, and then due to a procedural formality, he was saved twice from being stripped of his immunity for this double crime.

From New York, lawyer Quezada stated that “Judge Solís's sentence should become study material in the institutional schools of the Armed Forces, because it constitutes a historical document to establish the truth about the most atrocious crimes committed during the Pinochet dictatorship.” That Sunday, September 29, 1974, strangely, General Prats seemed cheerful and even laughed at times.

At the Stevenin-Muratorio country house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires (BA), he attended a barbecue with the former Chilean consul, Eduardo Ormeño. They talked about painting and other topics that he handled like a cultured soldier, just like his wife.

They played bridge, and the couple proposed forming a group to meet every Wednesday to play. They would start the following week. Around four in the afternoon, the Prats-Cuthberts asked Ormeño to take them back to Malabía to change clothes because they were going to the movies with Allende's former ambassador in Buenos Aires, Ramón Huidobro, and his wife. “Bread and Chocolate” was the movie.

Afterward, they went to dinner at Huidobro's house. There, Prats, during the after-dinner conversation, became sad again and said a phrase that marked that night forever: “How will this be, Ramón, where will it come from, but I am armed, so it won't be that easy for them.” In the previous days, he had received death threats.

The previous Friday, hidden in the Malabía garage, Townley installed the charge with two C4 cartridges and three detonators under the general's Fiat 125. “Uncle Kenny,” as Mariana Callejas's children called the gringo, had crossed paths with General Prats in a park days earlier while following him.

He thought about shooting him right there, but desisted because “there were too many people,” as he later said in the United States to Judge Servini. Meanwhile, “Yiyo” Raúl Iturriaga, then head of the DINA's foreign department, was watching, snooping, and gathering more data on the couple's movements, which he added to those collected by Major Juan Morales (who would later be the head of the fearsome Lautaro Brigade), sent by Contreras to BA as the first advance spy.

At 00:40 in the early hours of the 30th, Townley and Callejas were waiting a hundred meters away inside their car in the gloom of Calle Malabía, whose lights were duly turned off in coordination with Argentine intelligence.

Prats and his wife did not suspect a thing. Much less that they were minutes away from knowing the fatal answer to the comment that the general had made that night during the after-dinner conversation to his friend Ramón Huidobro: how will it be!

34 years later They were traveling through the Palermo neighborhood in Buenos Aires in the early hours of September 30 when a bomb installed by members of the DINA was detonated. General (ret.) Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, had been assassinated.

Yesterday, 34 years later, magistrate Alejandro Solís finally handed down convictions against the former DINA agents accused of illicit association and double homicide. For Manuel Contreras, the former operational chief of the intelligence group, he ordered life imprisonment for each of the deaths.

The sentence also includes penalties for eight other people. Informed of the ruling in depth, the two daughters of General Prats could not contain their emotion. For both, the sentences are just and provide truth to the country and the Army.

However, for them, Augusto Pinochet should also have been convicted, insofar as “he was also part of this group of people who attacked my father,” said Cecilia Prats. Once the ruling was made public, the Government valued the investigation, a step in the work of “making truth and justice,” as Minister of Justice Carlos Maldonado said.

The Socialist and PPD parliamentarians were also satisfied with the ruling and hopeful that other cases being investigated would also have this impact. But not everything has been said in this case yet. As it is a first-instance sentence, those involved can appeal. We will have to wait.

Convicted

• General (ret.) Juan Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda: Two life sentences for the qualified homicides of Carlos Prats González and Sofía Cuthbert Charleoni. Twenty more as chief in the crime of illicit association in real concurrence with the double crime of qualified homicide.
• Brigadier (ret.) Pedro Octavio Espinoza Bravo: Two 20-year sentences for the homicides of Carlos Prats González and Sofía Cuthbert Charleoni and 20 years as chief in the crime of illicit association.
• General (ret.) Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann: Two 15-year sentences for the qualified homicides and 541 days as a member of illicit association in real concurrence with the double crime of qualified homicide.
• Brigadier (ret.) José Octavio Zara Holger: Two 10-year and one-day sentences for the double homicide and 541 days for illicit association in real concurrence with the double crime of qualified homicide.
• Colonel (ret.) Cristoph Georg Paul Willeke Floel: Two 10-year and one-day sentences for the double homicide and 541 days as a member in the crime of illicit association.
• Colonel (ret.) Juan Hernán Morales Salgado: Two 10-year and one-day sentences for the double homicide and 541 days for illicit association.
• Mariana Inés Callejas Honores: Two 10-year and one-day sentences for the qualified double homicide.
• Jorge Enrique Iturriaga Neumann: Two 5-year and one-day sentences as an accomplice to qualified homicide.
• Non-commissioned officer Reginaldo de la Cruz Valdés Alarcón: Two 541-day sentences as an accomplice to qualified homicide.

Source: Lanacion.cl, July 1, 2008

Manuel Contreras sentenced to life imprisonment for Prats crime

Thirty-four years after the double homicide was committed, Judge Alejandro Solís handed down sentences against the leadership of the DINA for their responsibility in the death of the former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Carlos Prats, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert.

In the first-instance ruling, the judge established a life sentence for Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda for both crimes, as well as a twenty-year prison sentence for illicit association.

For Brigadier (ret.) Pedro Espinoza, the sentence is twenty years in prison for each murder and another twenty years for his role in this illicit association.

In the case of agent Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, the ruling is fifteen years in prison for each homicide and 541 days for illicit association. The sentences are slightly lower for José Zara, Juan Morales Salgado, and Christoph Willike, reaching ten years in prison for each crime and 541 days for illicit association.

In the case of Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, the sentence is five years and one day for each homicide, while Mariana Callejas—in her role as a material perpetrator of the crime—received a sentence of ten years for each homicide.

Finally, Sub-officer (ret.) Reginaldo Valdés will face two sentences of 541 days for his role in the two murders.

Daughters of the Prats-Cuthbert marriage highlight the ruling

Angélica and Cecilia Prats Cuthbert arrived at the Palace of Justice, pleased to learn of Judge Alejandro Solís's ruling against those who participated in the double homicide of their parents, Carlos Prats and Sofía Cuthbert, which occurred in 1974 in Argentina.

"What one hoped for most was justice in the face of what our parents experienced and the possibility of making a contribution to the country with this truth, a contribution to the Army so that it can write its true history," stated Angélica Prats.

Meanwhile, Cecilia stated that “the country already knows the truth; we are at peace after all these years. The Army also has clarity regarding the participants: there are seven military officers who, while on active duty, participated in the death of the Commander-in-Chief; the State agents who participated are also determined, so the country has that clarity, and we have it as well.”

Angélica Prats valued the work carried out by the judge in charge of the proceedings, Alejandro Solís, also pointing out that one cannot forget the progress made by the Argentine justice system, which is also processing this case.

For the Prats family lawyer, Pamela Pereira, Judge Solís's investigation makes it evident that the crime was "an act of terrorism of the greatest magnitude on foreign territory" and that "DINA agents, officers of the Chilean Army" participated in it.

Source: La Nación, June 30, 2008

Chile: DINA members accused of the assassination of General Prats

Chilean judge Alejandro Solís today accused General Manuel Contreras and other members of the DINA of illicit association for their participation in the assassination of former Army chief Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, committed in Buenos Aires in 1974.

This is the first time that the Chilean justice system has incriminated the DINA, the repressive apparatus of the military dictatorship (1973-1990), as an illicit association, a resolution that aligns with that of the Argentine courts.

In his indictments to rule on the case in the first instance, the magistrate maintains that the leaders of this illicit association are retired General Manuel Contreras and retired Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, both of whom are detained due to new convictions after serving sentences for the crime of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier.

The magistrate also accused former DINA civilian agents Mariana Callejas, as a material perpetrator of the assassination, and Jorge Iturriaga and Army Sub-officer (ret.) Reginaldo Valdés as accomplices.

It is also noted that retired General Raúl Iturriaga Neumann and retired Brigadiers José Zara and Christoph Willeke participated in the crime of illicit association to commit qualified homicide. Former civilian agent Mariana Callejas was accused as a material perpetrator of the double crime, while former agents Jorge Iturriaga Neumann and Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón acted as accomplices in the attack.

According to the magistrate, it was proven that agents of the Foreign Department of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) executed the plan in Buenos Aires designed by Contreras and Espinoza.

They also provided the means for former U.S. agent Michael Townley and Callejas to place a bomb in the couple's car. From this moment, the plenary stage begins, in which the parties can present evidence. The plaintiffs may join the accusation or formulate private accusations against the defendants. Subsequently, the defense parties will be able to act.

Source: elclarin.cl, January 25, 2007

Prosecution of Army sub-officer

Unanimously, the Santiago Court of Appeals confirmed the prosecution of a military officer accused as an accomplice to the homicide of General Carlos Prats, perpetrated in Buenos Aires in September 1974.

The accused is retired Army sub-officer Reginaldo Valdés, who was indicted in April by Judge Alejandro Solís, who is in charge of the proceedings for the assassination of the former military chief and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert.

Valdés was mentioned by the American Michael Townley, a former agent of the DINA, the dissolved secret police of Augusto Pinochet's government.

According to Townley, Valdés was one of his collaborators in the pre-operational activity of tracking and checking the activities of Prats and his wife in the Argentine capital.

October 30, 2006, El Mercurio

Prats Case: Court upholds prosecution against former DINA agent

Army sub-officer (ret.) Reginaldo Valdés will remain prosecuted as an accomplice to the crime against General (ret.) Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, which occurred in Buenos Aires on September 30, 1974.

This was resolved unanimously by the Third Chamber of the Santiago Court, after analyzing the appeal presented by the former DINA agent against the indictment issued against him in April 2005 by Judge Alejandro Solís.

The decision is important for the case because, after the ruling, the case files returned to the hands of Judge Solís, who will decide this week whether or not to reopen the summary, which was closed last August.

The judge must settle whether to grant the nearly 60 proceedings requested by the lawyers of the accused, so that the investigation may continue. Among the various requests is that the extradition of Townley be requested, who lives as a protected witness for the justice system in the U.S.

January 25, 2007, Radio Universidad de Chile

Judge accuses DINA of “illicit association” for the first time

For the first time in recent judicial history, a Chilean judge accused the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), the secret police during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, of being "an illicit association," in particular, for committing the double homicide of retired General Carlos Prats and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, on September 30, 1974, in Buenos Aires.

Judge Alejandro Solís issued the indictments to rule on the case in the first instance, in which he pointed to General (ret.) Manuel Contreras and Brigadier (ret.) Pedro Espinoza as the leaders of this illicit association.

The magistrate noted that the process "has been complicated because there are several crimes, there are people of a very high level in the military hierarchy who are implicated, therefore the work has been quite strenuous."

The ruling also determined that Brigadiers (ret.) Raúl Iturriaga Neumann, Jorge Zara, and Christoph Willike were part of the criminal group, as was former civilian agent Mariana Callejas.

Brigadiers Jorge Iturriaga and Reginaldo Valdés, meanwhile, remained in the capacity of accomplices.

The DINA, which according to Contreras depended directly on the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, is pointed to by human rights lawyers as being responsible for hundreds of crimes against opponents of the military regime.

In addition to the case of Prats and his wife, it was also responsible for the attack that cost the life of former Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his secretary in Washington.

Source: latercera.cl, October 12, 2005

Chilean State must pay 1.23 million dollars to General Prats' family

The Chilean State must pay compensation of 600 million pesos (1.23 million dollars) to the family of the former chief of the Chilean Army, General Carlos Prats, assassinated by agents of Augusto Pinochet in Argentina in 1974, judicial sources reported today.

The first-instance ruling, issued today by the 26th Civil Court of Santiago, corresponds to a lawsuit filed in March of last year by the three daughters of the assassinated military officer against the State and the perpetrators of the crime.

Prats, Pinochet's predecessor in the command of the Army, died along with his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, when a bomb placed in their car exploded in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo, where he had moved after the military coup of September 11, 1973, in Chile, which he opposed.

The Prats family lawyer, Luciano Fouilloux, confirmed to Efe the amount of compensation set by the court in today's ruling, which is appealable in the higher courts.

For Fouilloux, today's ruling "is very important" because it establishes that in crimes against humanity, "statutes of limitations do not apply due to internal regulations, international treaties, or the political Constitution itself."

He also highlighted that the ruling rejects the allegations of partial payment presented by the State Defense Council (CDE), based on the reparations that the State had made within the framework of the Rettig Report, "which are understood as partial but not complete."

The Rettig Report determined in the early 90s that during the dictatorship (1973-1990), some 3,200 Chileans died at the hands of State agents for political reasons, of whom some 1,192 are still considered forcibly disappeared.

Originally, the lawsuit was filed for a sum of fifteen million dollars, which should be paid jointly by the State and the perpetrators of the crime.

In July 2010, in a final ruling, the Supreme Court of Chile sentenced the two top leaders of the DINA—the secret police of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship—retired General Manuel Contreras and former Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, to 17 years for qualified homicide, plus another three years and one day for illicit association.

In addition, retired General Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, former Brigadier José Zara, and colonels Cristoph Willeke and Juan Morales Salgado were sentenced to fifteen years and one day in prison for the homicides and one hundred days for illicit association.

Writer Mariana Callejas, who according to the judicial file was the one who activated the remote control that detonated the bomb, was sentenced to five years in prison, which she is serving under a supervised release regime.

For his part, civilian Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, brother of Raúl, and former sub-officer Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón must serve, also under supervised release, five years in prison and 541 days of minor imprisonment, respectively, as accomplices.

Regarding the lawsuit, lawyer Fouilloux told Efe, at the time of filing it, that for the victims' daughters it means "closing the circle of their parents' assassination within the framework of a civil trial based on the status of public officials that the perpetrators held."

He stressed that "General Contreras and the DINA leadership had, to commit the crime, "state, logistical, monetary, and operational support" as well as "political instructions from those who administered the State at that time."

Source: lainformacion.com, August 2, 2012

Justice reduces sentences for those responsible for the death of Allende's Army chief

The Supreme Court of Chile today reduced the sentences for the main individuals responsible for the assassination of General Carlos Prats and his wife, which occurred in 1974 in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), judicial sources reported.

The ruling sentenced the two top leaders of Pinochet's secret police, retired General Manuel Contreras and former Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, to seventeen years for qualified homicide, plus another three years and one day for illicit association.

Both had been sentenced, in a first-instance ruling that was later ratified by the Santiago Court of Appeals, to two life sentences for qualified homicides, plus another 20 years for illicit association.

The assassination of Prats, Commander-in-Chief of the Army during the government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) and Augusto Pinochet's predecessor in that position, was the first of several attacks committed abroad by DINA agents.

The sentence announced today puts an end to a process that began in 2002, when the Supreme Court opened an investigation into the assassination carried out on foreign territory, considering that the execution of this crime began in the country, with the planning of the attack.

One of the important points of this ruling lies in the unification of the sentences, which, if in the first and second sentences were two life sentences for the two homicides, are now a single sentence of seventeen years in prison, without benefits, for both murders.

In addition, the sentence imposes fifteen years and one day in prison as perpetrators of the homicide on four other repressors: retired General Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, former Brigadier José Zara, and former colonels Cristoph Willeke Floel and Juan Morales Salgado.

In the previous ruling, Iturriaga Neumann had received two sentences of fifteen years in prison, while the other three implicated had been imposed two sentences of ten years in prison for each of them.

Likewise, the four had been imposed sentences of 541 days for the crime of illicit association, which in the final sentence have been reduced to one hundred days for each of them.

Both Contreras and Espinoza, as well as these four convicted individuals, to whom the ruling grants effective prison time, are already in prison, serving other sentences for human rights violations during the dictatorship.

Meanwhile, the sentence also reduces the penalty for writer Mariana Callejas, ex-wife of the American DINA agent Michael Townley, who will have to serve five years in prison with benefits, that is, under supervised release.

Callejas, who according to the file was the one who activated the remote control that detonated the bomb that killed Prats and his wife, became known for holding literary gatherings at her house attended by well-known writers, while in the basement her husband manufactured bombs, sarin gas, or tortured prisoners.

Meanwhile, the civilian member of the DINA Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, brother of Raúl, who had received two sentences of five years and one day as an accomplice to the double crime, must also serve a single sentence of five years with benefits, which in practice exempts him from going to prison.

Likewise, former sub-officer Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón obtained two sentences of 541 days of minor imprisonment in its medium degree with the benefit of conditional remission of the sentence as an accomplice to the double crime, which means that he will also serve them in freedom.

This is the only sentence that the Supreme Court kept unchanged regarding the first and second instance rulings.

In this way, Callejas, Jorge Iturriaga, and Reginaldo Valdés, who are at liberty, will not have to enter prison.

Source: ultimahora.com, July 8, 2010

NEW CONDOR PLAN ARCHIVES

The secret police of the late General Augusto Pinochet led an espionage network inside and outside of Chile that crossed paths with the Vatican, the FBI, Latin American dictatorships, and the world press, according to thousands of secret and hitherto unpublished files.

These documents, for decades classified as reserved, confirm that the Chilean repressive bodies, the DINA first and the CNI later, maintained almost daily correspondence with ministers and other authorities to coordinate operations around the world.

Colonel Manuel Contreras, who as director of the DINA planned attacks in the United States, Argentina, and Italy, even had the authority to investigate State employees, as revealed by Reserved Circular 35 F-151 of 1975. "His Excellency, that is to say Pinochet, has ordered that from this date no public official be hired without previously attaching to their background an official DINA report regarding the activities that the interested party may have carried out," reported the Minister of the Interior of the time, General Raúl Benavides.

In 1976, the powers of the DINA were expanded and detailed. It could investigate all officials, being the only one responsible for installing presidential intercoms in the public administration.

The secret police had a file with the records of the detained and persecuted

The secret police, responsible for thousands of disappeared, executed, and tortured people, according to official reports, also came to have a file with the records of all those detained and persecuted, whose information it sent to any ministry that requested it.

The DINA, whose director is today in prison serving a hundred sentences, even had the power to give orders to ministers, as revealed by the Epsilon Operations Plan.

“Psychological action campaign.”

The initiative was designed in June 1975 by Contreras, before the visit to the country of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which was attended by hundreds of opposition whistleblowers. Colonel Contreras, who always boasted of having breakfast daily with Pinochet, distributed tasks in that plan to all types of authorities, whom he warned that in case of any doubt they should contact him directly by phone.

The strategy, contained in 11 pages distributed to ministers and service chiefs, had the mission of "carrying out an open and clandestine psychological action campaign" to neutralize reports of human rights violations in the world.

The actions range from the use of journalists, who are not named, to "make fun" of the visit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to the elimination of World War II tapes from television programming for alluding to Nazism.

Also proposed are campaigns of attacks on the human rights situation in Portugal, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Vietnam, and the playing of a soccer match between Chile and Brazil as a distraction.

The coordination between the secret police and the ministers continued even after the dissolution of the DINA in 1978, after a crisis broke out with the United States due to the explosive attack in Washington against former socialist Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier.

CNI operations.

Embassies sent reports on exiles and media.

The CNI, the body that replaced the DINA, promoted operations from that year in Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil through Chilean embassies that sent periodic reports on the activity of exiles, the media, and humanitarian organizations.

Proof of this is that on March 17, 1978, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chile, Brigadier General Enrique Valdés Puga, signed and sent secret official letter number 35 from the Foreign Ministry to the then director of the CNI, General Odlanier Mena. "In accordance with what was discussed with you regarding the need to normalize the situation of sending officers of that CNI as Administrative or Civil Counselors to different Chilean diplomatic representations abroad, I would be very grateful if you could send, as soon as possible, to the undersigned, a copy of the Condor Plan," wrote Valdés.

The head of the secret police, as was customary, replied on February 21 directly to the Foreign Minister of the time, Admiral Patricio Carvajal, ratifying the assignments of military officers José Aqueveque, León González, and Raúl Tejo to Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, respectively.

Discredit opponents and gain allies.

The secret files also reveal the continuous effort of the dictatorship (1973-1990) to discredit its opponents and gain allies, an operation in which the current Renovación Nacional deputy Alberto Cardemil, a fellow party member of President Sebastián Piñera, also appears involved.

Cardemil, who served in the preliminaries of the Pinochet regime as Deputy Minister of the Interior, sent to the Foreign Ministry the secret files of the officials of the Vicaría de la Solidaridad, to set in motion a broad campaign to discredit that entity defending human rights, led by the Catholic Church.

"In accordance with what was discussed in our lunch meeting of past days, I allow myself to attach a folder with complete background information on the people who work at the Vicaría de la Solidaridad," wrote Cardemil on April 26, 1985, in secret official letter 1953.

Tracking of correspondents and artists.

The operations detailed in these files also reveal the tracking of hundreds of correspondents inside and outside of Chile, such as Pierre Kalfon of "Le Monde" and James Pringle of "NewsWeek," among nearly a thousand referred to in these documents.

The texts show dialogues with the Vatican and reports from the Navy.

There is also concern about the work of artists such as writer Ariel Dorfman, and intelligence teams send government authorities details of debates in study centers, which they call "intellectual activism."

The texts also lay bare the dialogues with the Vatican to neutralize the sectors of the Church that criticized human rights violations, led by Cardinal Raúl Silva Henríquez.

Key pieces in this whole framework are also the Sociological Appreciation Reports that the Navy prepared for the Military Junta in the final years of the regime. In them, the handover of power and the characteristics that the democracy in the making must have are outlined, where it is expected that the military will not yield "the principle of authority."

"This will merit the convenience of considering in 1989 some changes to the organization of the State, preserving the institutional substance of the first three chapters of the Constitution," proposed Navy Captain Rodolfo Camacho in those documents on January 6, 1989.

The changes were finally agreed upon with the center-left opposition. The Constitution drafted then has governed Chile until today.

Today it was announced that there will be a millionaire compensation for the family of a general assassinated by Pinochet.

The Chilean State must pay compensation of 600 million pesos (1.23 million dollars) to the family of the former chief of the Chilean Army, General Carlos Prats, assassinated by agents of Augusto Pinochet in Argentina in 1974, judicial sources have reported.

The first-instance ruling, issued this Thursday by the 26th Civil Court of Santiago, corresponds to a lawsuit filed in March of last year by the three daughters of the assassinated military officer against the State and the perpetrators of the crime.

Prats, Pinochet's predecessor in the command of the Army, died along with his wife, Sofía Cuthbert, when a bomb placed in their car exploded in Buenos Aires, where he had moved after the military coup of September 11, 1973, in Chile, which he opposed.

The Prats family lawyer, Luciano Fouilloux, has confirmed the amount of compensation set by the court in the ruling, which is appealable in higher judicial instances.

For Fouilloux, the ruling "is very important," because it establishes that in crimes against humanity "statutes of limitations do not apply due to internal regulations, international treaties, or the political Constitution itself."

The lawyer has also highlighted that the ruling rejects the allegations of partial payment presented by the State Defense Council (CDE), based on the reparations that the State had made within the framework of the Rettig Report, "which are understood as partial but not complete."

The Rettig Report determined in the early 90s that during the dictatorship (1973-1990), some 3,200 Chileans died at the hands of State agents for political reasons, of whom 1,192 are still considered forcibly disappeared.

Originally, the lawsuit was filed for 15 million dollars, which should be paid jointly by the State and the perpetrators of the crime.

In July 2010, in a final ruling, the Supreme Court of Chile sentenced the two top leaders of the DINA, the secret police of Pinochet's dictatorship, retired General Manuel Contreras and former Brigadier Pedro Espinoza, to 17 years for qualified homicide, plus another three years and one day for illicit association.

In addition, retired General Raúl Eduardo Iturriaga Neumann, former Brigadier José Zara, and colonels Cristoph Willeke and Juan Morales Salgado were sentenced to 15 years and one day in prison for the homicides and 100 days for illicit association.

Writer Mariana Callejas, who according to the judicial file was the one who activated the remote control that detonated the bomb, was sentenced to five years in prison, which she is serving under a supervised release regime.

For his part, civilian Jorge Iturriaga Neumann, brother of Raúl, and former sub-officer Reginaldo Valdés Alarcón must serve, also under supervised release, five years in prison and 541 days of minor imprisonment, respectively, as accomplices.

In Argentina, remains of a Cuban diplomat disappeared in 1976 are discovered in a barrel.

On June 11, a group of children hunting rodents in a property located in front of the San Fernando airfield noticed an oxidized metal barrel with a capacity for 200 liters. It was broken. The children saw bones and called 911.

The police later discovered two other similar barrels that also had skeletal remains. After analyzing them, it was established that one of the bodies belongs to Crescencio Nicomedes Galañena Hernández, a Cuban diplomat who disappeared on August 9, 1976.

The case was led by San Isidro prosecutor Luis Angelini, in charge of the executive area of criminal investigations of San Fernando. The judicial official involved the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team.

As judicial sources confirmed to Página/12, the expertise carried out by that organization, whose members did not want to make statements yesterday, indicated that the body was 99.99 percent likely to be that of the Cuban diplomat.

The file will now pass to the court of Daniel Rafecas, who is in charge of the case for crimes against humanity committed in the clandestine center Automotores Orletti, where Galañena Hernández was last seen.

The Federal Justice system will be in charge of certifying the identification.

Galañena Hernández was kidnapped along with Jesús Cejas Arias on August 9, 1976, in the Belgrano neighborhood. They had just left the Cuban embassy, where they worked. Four days later, on August 13, La Opinión published that "the Cuban embassy in Buenos Aires is working in close contact with the Argentine government in the search for two members of the representation, about whom it is presumed that they had been kidnapped.

The two men, Jesús Cejas Arias and Crescencio Galañena Hernández, both members of the administrative staff of the Cuban embassy, have not been seen since they left the embassy on Monday."

On August 17, in the same newspaper, it was reported that "The Associated Press news agency received an envelope yesterday, by regular mail and with an Argentine stamp, containing the credentials of the administrative employees of the Cuban embassy, whose text in uneven handwriting says: ‘We (Jesús Cejas Arias and Crescencio Galañena) both Cubans address you to communicate through this means that we have defected from the embassy to enjoy the freedom of the Western world,’ the note does not carry a signature at the bottom or any other clarification.

The Argentine Foreign Ministry certified the authenticity of the credentials."

In this way, the Argentine dictatorship set up an operation to make it believe that the two men had abandoned the Cuban regime and not have to give explanations for the disappearance of two diplomats.

But Cejas Arias and Galañena Hernández were captive in Automotores Orletti, the clandestine center that was in Buenos Aires the headquarters of the Condor Plan, that is, of the repressive coordination of the dictatorships of the Southern Cone.

According to an investigation by American journalist John Dinges, CIA agent Michael Townley and the Cuban-American Guillermo Novo Sampoll had traveled to Argentina to interrogate Cejas Arias and Galañena Hernández.

"They cooperated in the torture and assassination of the two Cuban diplomats," Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda, former head of the DINA, the Pinochet secret police, allegedly declared before Judge María Servini de Cubría. Townley was the author of the 1976 assassination in Washington of Orlando Letelier, Salvador Allende's Foreign Minister.

"The building where Automotores Orletti operated—described Judge Rafecas when he prosecuted the repressors who acted in that clandestine center—was one more in a long line of low houses, on a typical street, in a typical neighborhood of the western capital area, as was that of Flores (...) Orletti clearly shows that state terrorism in Argentina in 1976 could also move with naturalness in spaces of normality, and not of exception, that it did not have to emphasize secrecy but acted in plain sight of anyone who wanted to see and hear; that it adapted to function in a space where there was previously a home and a workshop, and that at its end, that home and that workshop returned, were reconditioned, and even took advantage of the improvements made by the previous occupants."

Survivors related that the victims were generally on the lower floor or garage, where they were kept blindfolded and tied. There, screams could be heard from the upper floor, where the torture room operated.

One of the cruel methods used by the repressors of the center run by the SIDE consisted of the kidnapped being handcuffed and hung from a hook until their feet were about 20 or 30 centimeters from the floor, and in that state, electricity was applied to their bodies.

For the kidnapping and disappearance of Galañena Hernández and Cejas Arias, retired General Rodolfo Cabanillas, who served as head of the SIDE Division "Tactical Operations 18," which corresponded to Orletti, and the repressors Raúl Guglielminetti, Eduardo Alfredo Ruffo, and Honorio Carlos Martínez Ruiz have already been convicted in Argentina.

It is not the first time that victims who passed through Orletti have been found in barrels. In 1976, seven containers of this same type were found in the San Fernando canal containing corpses and cement. The bodies were buried as "NN" in the San Fernando cemetery and could be identified some time later. In 1989, it became known that one of them was Marcelo Gelman, son of the poet Juan Gelman.

The three drums found in June, less than two months ago, were also found on a property in San Fernando, where earth-moving work was being carried out to, apparently, build houses and where there was previously a gravel pit.

They were numbered and filled with concrete. There, the remains of Galañena Hernández were kept until the group of children who were hunting saw the bones. Prosecutor Luis Angelini ordered the Superintendence of the Scientific Police to carry out an intensive search to determine if there are more barrels on the property and also that those found be analyzed in order to determine if they were at that site for 36 years or were recently deposited there.

Rafecas had pointed out in his resolution, when alluding to the barrels found in 1976:

"The process of dehumanization, which began with capture and continued in the detention and torture camp, had in these cases an end that can hardly be surpassed from the perspective of the elimination of every vestige of human condition towards the captives: one must realize that people with whom we share the same culture, the same civilization, executed with a shot to the head men and women who were at their mercy; then they procured drums, sand, and cement; then, not without effort, and surely by their own hand, they placed the corpses in the drums, filled them, sealed them, carried with their arms the load of human remains to the trucks, and finally threw the drums into the river."

Source: radio36.com, August 2, 2012