Pinochet ordered killing on US soil of Chilean diplomat
Source: Al Jazeera
Declassified US documents show that former dictator personally ordered killing of Orlando Letelier in Washington DC
General Augusto Pinochet ordered the 1976 assassination in Washington D.C. of a Chilean diplomat fleeing his dictatorship, according to declassified U.S. documents.
Orlando Letelier, who served as foreign minister under socialist president Salvador Allende, was imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet government after Allende was deposed in a coup on Sept. 11, 1973.
He later went into exile in the United States, where he led resistance to Pinochet. In 1976 he was killed, along with Ronni Moffitt, his U.S. co-worker at the Institute for Policy Studies, by a car bomb detonated at Sheridan Circle in Embassy Row. Moffit’s husband, Michael, was seriously injured in the blast.
"There is a report from the CIA which is conclusive regarding Pinochet’s responsibility in ordering the assassination of my father. This is the first time there is evidence of this," Juan Pablo Letelier, a Chilean senator and a son of the victim, told Tele13 Radio on Thursday.
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Read more: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/10/8/pinochet-directly-ordered-killing-on-us-soil-of-chilean-diplomat.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Response to bananas (Original post)
A couple of them were released from prison by George W. Bush soon after he occupied the White House. Very sad, and flagrant act by him.
Here's a quick google grab chosen immediately after seeing your post:
[center]~ ~ ~
Orlando Letelier
from the book
The CIAs Greatest Hits
by Mark Zepezauer[/center]
"Are you the wife of Orlando Letelier?" asked the anonymous caller. "Yes," she answered. "No," the caller said, ~ you are his widow."
A week later, on September 21, 1976, the exiled Chilean diplomat and prominent critic of the CIA-backed Pinochet regime was torn to pieces by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC. Also killed was Letelier's American aide, Ronni Moffit. Her husband, blown clear of the car, immediately began shouting that Chilean fascists were responsible for the atrocity.
He was right, but those fascists had powerful allies in Washington. An FBI informant knew of the plot to assassinate Letelier before the fact but the FBI did nothing to protect him. After the bombing, CIA Director George Bush told the FBI that there'd been no Chilean involvement whatever. The CIA was certain of this, he said, because it had many reliable sources inside the Chilean secret police, DINA.
Actually, the CIA had known that a DINA hit squad was in the US and headed for Washington. After the bombing, the agency purged its files of photos of the assassins. The CIA and DINA then began planting stories in the press suggesting that Letelier had been killed by leftists seeking to make a martyr of him.
The FBI figured out the identities of Letelier's assassins within weeks, but didn't charge them until the CIA's cover-up unraveled several years later. The unraveling began a month after the killing, when a Cuban airliner was bombed, killing 73 passengers. That bombing was done by a violent group of CIA-linked Cuban exiles who were connected with the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination and who went on to do similar things in El Salvador and Nicaragua.
Investigators into the airliner bombing discovered that both it and the Letelier/Moffit killings were planned at the same meeting, which was organized by a man with longtime CIA connections and was attended by other FBI and CIA men.
Apologists argue that no one can prove that Letelier's convicted assassins, "former" CIA agent Michael Townley and two Cuban exiles, were acting under agency orders. But if they weren't, why did the CIA immediately begin covering up for them?
More:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Letelier_CIAHits.html
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
The Bush dynasty and the Cuban criminals
New book reveals links of two presidents and the governor of Florida with exiled hardliners
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Sunday 1 December 2002 20.54 EST
. . .
Other Cuban exiles involved in terrorist acts, Jose Dionisio Suarez and Virgilio Paz Romero, who carried out the 1976 assassination of the Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, have also been released by the current Bush administration.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/02/usa.books
[center]
Jose Dionisio Suarez (Esquival) being released
from prison where he served time for his part
in assassinating Orlando Letelier and his U.S.
American aide, Ronni Moffit.
Virgilio Paz Romero
Jose Dionisio Suarez, Michael Townley (son of a U.S. auto corporation executive in Chile), Virgilio Paz.[/center]
