MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Benchmark sentence for high ranking Pinochet era officer

A Chilean judge sentenced the former secret intelligence chief for General Augusto Pinochet to two life terms for the 1974 murder of Carlos Prat, former commander in chief of the Chilean Army, and his wife, Sofia Cuthbert. They were killed when a bomb placed under their car exploded as they returned home to their apartment in Buenos Aires.

Judge Alejandro Solis sentenced Manuel Contreras, the former director of the intelligence service, known as DINA, and seven other military and civilian agents involved with the intelligence service. The killings took place in September 1974, a year after the bloody military coup led by Pinochet which ousted elected president Salvador Allende and installed an iron fist regime that lasted until 1990. This is the first time in Chile that high ranking officers are sentenced for the killing of a fellow officer. Moreover during all the years of investigation General Pinochet denied any participation in the bomb attack and blamed his chief of intelligence. Contreras also denied any wrong doing but it was finally the confessions of other officers that helped solve the case. In the 500 pages ruling Judge Solis details how the killing of the former Commander of the Chilean Army (until 16 days before the 1973 coup) was planned, financed and executed. He also makes a specific acknowledgement to Argentine Judge Maria Servini de Cubría who sentenced an assistant in the bomb killings Enrique Arancibia Clavet, to life imprisonment, and her later request for the extradition of General Pinochet. This request forced the Chilean Supreme Court to re-open the Prat killings case. But Judge Solis was also able to discover how millions of US dollars were invested in tracking and killing opponents of the Chilean military regime and specifically in Argentina with the help and support of members from the local repression and intelligence services. It was on June 1974 that Pinochet gave the green light for the elimination of General Prat, the very month he was named chief of the Chilean military Junta. Pinochet and his closest aides feared Prat because they believed he was the only high ranking officer with enough prestige and reputation in the Chilean Armed Forces to bring down the newly installed regime. The elimination of Prat would also help General Contreras centralize all intelligence and covert actions. Michael Townley was the intelligence officer who executed the operation that terminated with the life of Prat and his wife. Currently under witness protection of the United States for having confessed his participation in a similar attack against a former Chilean Foreign Affairs minister in Washington, Townley traveled to Buenos Aires twice, finally taking the necessary explosives to attach to the car and detonate by remote control. He first tried the system with smaller charges in Chile and "it worked magnificently". Although the building where General Prat lived was heavily guarded Townley managed to sneak into the underground garage, hide in the boiler room and later attach the explosive to the car. A party in one of the floors with a lot of people coming in and out helped him abandon the garage unnoticed. Townley waited two or three days and one night when the Prat couple was returning to their apartment and ready to enter the garage he detonated the bomb from a block away, with a walkie-talkie turned into remote control. The following day he left for Montevideo and later to Santiago. General Contreras and his team were very happy: "I had managed to ensure they took full control of all the regime's intelligence services and actions".