MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Killing of US journalist in 1973 in Chile almost solved

A Santiago Court of Appeals upheld a ruling this Monday contrary to a former Chilean Air Force intelligence agent accused of participating in the 1973 murder of U.S. journalist Charles Horman, whose case inspired the film “Missing.”

Mr. Horman was investigating the alleged U.S. CIA intervention in the ousting of the Socialist elected government of Salvador Allende (1970-1973) when he was arrested by the military, six days after the bloody coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.

According to Special Judge Jorge Zepeda's findings, the journalist was murdered a day after his arrest in the Chilean Defence Ministry building. His body was found in a clandestine grave in Santiago's general cemetery. The Horman case inspired the 1982 film "Missing" by Greek-French director Constantin Costa-Gavras starring Jack Lemmon as the missing journalist's father desperately looking for his son.

The prosecution says there is reason to believe that agent Gonzalez Verdugo not only collaborated in Horman's murder, but also conducted the interrogation the day of his arrest. Mr. Gonzalez Verdugo probed the journalist about his investigations into the killing of Chilean Army Chief Rene Schneider, slain by extreme right guerrillas in 1970. According to Horman's family, their son had evidence that the assassination of General Schneider was supported by the CIA.

Several other Generals and Colonels are supposedly involved in the kidnapping and killing of Mr. Horman, a lawsuit began in December 2000 by the slain journalist's family.

Last year a Chilean Judge received a written testimony from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger regarding the circumstances surrounding Horman's death.