MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pinochet plan to poison Buenos Aires water

The sentencing of several Chilean Army officers found guilty of killing a former intelligence scientist involved in biological warfare revealed General Pinochet regime's plans to poison Buenos Aires drinking water reserves in the event of a war back in 1978.

According to the Chilean magazine "Siete + 7", Eugenio Berríos a brilliant chemist who was the brains behind the Chilean Army's biological warfare department had conceived a plan to poison Buenos Aires water with laboratory chemical and biological products if the Beagle channel dispute of 1978 erupted into a full war. The conflict was stopped when tanks began rolling by a personal appeal from Pope John Paul II to the dictators of Chile and Argentina.

Mr. Berríos was eventually found killed with two bullets in the head and buried in a Uruguayan beach in 1993, country where apparently he was living under a cover up operation of Chilean military intelligence with support from Uruguayan Army officers.

Chilean Justice inquiring into the killing of a former Foreign Affairs Minister in Washington by Chilean Army intelligence insisted in 1991 in questioning Mr. Berríos for his alleged participation in the elaboration of sophisticated explosives. He was then taken to live in Montevideo under custody, but by 1993 he was becoming homesick and on several occasions tried to escape.

Apparently the last time he unsuccessfully attempted to reach the Uruguayan police and was finally captured by the Chilean custody, shot and buried in a Uruguayan beach. His body was recovered in 1995 and DNA identified in 1997.

Chile's military intelligence under General Pinochet's command until 1998 was also responsible for the biological warfare department that employed Mr. Berríos who allegedly was able to add such potent chemicals as sarin gas, anthrax and botulism toxins to the massive destruction arsenal of Chilean forces.

Among those directly involved in the killing is a former head of General Pinochet's bodyguards and also responsible for his personal safety when under house arrest in Britain, Major Jaime Torres Gazitúa. Two generals in active service were also found guilty of justice obstruction.

In the final sentencing of the six Army officers involved in the Berríos case the Chilean Justice makes a point of underlining that the lack of collaboration from the Uruguayan authorities and Judicial branch delayed considerably the investigation.

Uruguayan intelligence Colonel Tomás Casella, an admirer of Pinochet, was identified as the liaison man in the cover up operation.

Mr. Berríos had also been accused of involvement in the death of former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Sr. (1964-1970) who succumbed to a double origin septicaemia following surgery in the early eighties. Mr. Frei's family claim that the former president who at the time was organizing the opposition to the Pinochet regime, unexpectedly died during convalescence and the forensic report identified two different incompatible germs that never act simultaneously.

The Pinochet regime was also pointed out in the eighties for selling "sophisticated" weapons and technology to countries that now are in the list of "rogue" states.