By Kaitlyn Degnan
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
SANTIAGO, Chile — Newly declassified documents show that 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier was directly ordered by General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet ruled Chile as dictator from 1973 until 1990.
Orlando Letelier, along with an American co-worker, was killed by a car bomb in Washington, D.C. on September 21, 1976. A third passenger was seriously injured, but survived.
Letelier was a former Chilean defense and foreign minister, a top official under Salvador Allende, the Marxist President deposed in the 1973 coup. Before fleeing to the United States, Letelier was tortured and jailed.
In the United States, Letelier lobbied against Pinochet’s government and was considered one of its most prominent opponents.
The documents included a secret 1987 memorandum written by George P. Shultz, then Secretary of State. The memorandum (addressed to President Ronald Reagan) referred to a C.I.A. report which he said contained “convincing evidence that President Pinochet personally ordered his intelligence chief to carry out the murders.”
Chilean courts held agents of DINA, the intelligent agency and Pinochet’s secret police, responsible for the murder.
The former director of DINA, General Manuel Contreras, was later tried and convicted of human rights violations in the 1990s by a Chilean court. He was sentenced to 505 years in prison, where he died on August 8, 2015.
The documents allegedly include correspondence from Contreras confirming that “all foreign operations had been approved by Pinochet.”
It has long been assumed that Pinochet was responsible for the murder, but this is the first presentation of conclusive evidence.
John Kerry gave the collection of over 280 documents to the Chilean government while in the country this week. The documents had previously been withheld from the last release of documents related to the Pinochet regime, released by the Clinton administration from 1999 to 2000. The Justice Department had renewed the investigation into the case and the withheld documents were considered potential evidence.
The release of the documents was reported by Chilean Senator Juab Pablo Letelier, son of the late Orlando Letelier. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet arranged for Senator Letelier to receive copies of the documents. He said that the documents contained “concrete information about how Pinochet covered up his responsibility.”
For more information, please see:
Reuters – U.S. documents show Pinochet ordered Letelier’s murder: Chilean senator – 8 October 2015
Washington Post – Declassified US docs reveal Pinochet ordered killing in US – 8 October 2015
