Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras, the former head of Chile’s dictatorship-era National Intelligence Directive (DINA), received two consecutive life sentences Monday for masterminding the 1974 assassinations of former Chilean Army General Carlos Prats and Prats’ wife, Sofía Cuthbert.

Former brigadier general and DINA officer Pedro Espinoza Bravo was given 40 years for his part in the planning of the political assassinations. Espinoza has been charged several times for his roles in “Operation Condor” and the “Caravan of Death,” in which former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s political opponents were kidnapped and murdered.

In addition to sentencing Contreras and Espinoza, Judge Alejandro Solís announced that José Zara, Juan Morales Salgado and Christoph Willeke will each spend 20 years and two days behind bars for their involvement in the Prats case. Raúl Iturriaga and Mariana Callejas received sentences of 30 years and 10 years and one day, respectively. Judge Solís also handed down two 541 day sentences to DINA sub-official Reginaldo Valdés.

According to Contreras’ testimony, the DINA planned and executed the Prats family assassination on direct orders from Pinochet.

Prats served a Commander and Chief of the Chilean Army during the presidency of socialist Salvador Allende. Following civil unrest, Prats stepped down on August 22, 1973. His resignation allowed plans for a military coup to continue in full force. His replacement was Gen. Augusto Pinochet, at that time believed to be a staunch Allende loyalist.

After the September 11, 1973 coup, Prats went into exile with his wife to the Palermo district of Buenos Aires. Pinochet viewed Prats, a constitutionalist who remained popular among the military ranks following his resignation, as the primary barrier to achieving military unity behind the governing Junta.

Human rights advocates see the convictions, which come 34 years after the car bombing that killed Prats and Cuthbert on September 30, 1974, as a key milestone in Chile’s struggle to mend its troubled human rights past. Before Monday’s decision, the only conviction in the Prats case had been handed down by an Argentine court on July 15, 2007.

Angélica Prats, the victims’ daughter, was filled with emotion following the court’s decision. “These 34 years have been spent searching for truth and justice,” she said. “There were some very difficult moments when we feared the killers would never be punished. Judge Solís handed down a clear judgment for the perpetrators of the crime. Although Augusto Pinochet is unable to be punished for his numerous crimes against Chile, this ruling brings a sense of justice for the murder of my parents and for all the victims of the military government.”

In a Monday press release, Socialist Party President Camilo Escalona welcomed the court’s decision. “This ruling is an act of justice against the military regime’s terror against Chile and its people,” he said. “The judgment today is a message that cannot be ignored by civilians and future military personnel. … Judgments such as these allow our society, particularly the victims and their families, to regain its moral consciousness.”

Escalona also repeated his disgust for what he called Senate President Adolfo Zaldívar’s “thesis that trials against the military should end.” “To entertain Zaldívar’s recommendation is to ignore the countless cries for closure by the victims’ families,” said Escalona. “Judge Solís’ successful convictions show that indictments are still a legitimate means of delivering justice in Chile.”

Amnesty International Chile also praised the court’s decision, but said much work remains to be done to achieve justice for victims of Pinochet-era human rights violations. “We welcome the conviction of Manuel Contreras and others for the killing of Gen. Carlos Prats and his wife. We view the judgment as a significant step towards ending impunity for human rights violations during the military regime. Ongoing cases concerning human rights violations should continue to be investigated, as well as the actions of other military officers - both retired and active - who may have been involved,” Amnesty told The Santiago Times.

Contreras and Espinoza have been in the spotlight for decades concerning their alleged roles in countless human rights violations following the 1973 coup against Allende. In 1993, Contreras and Espinoza were convicted for their role in the Washington, D.C. car bomb plot that claimed the lives of Marcos Orlando Letelier — who served as Chile’s Ambassador to the United States under Allende —and his assistant Ronnie Moffet on September 21, 1976.

While the involvement of the U.S. government’s Central Intelligence Agency in destabilizing Allende’s government prior to the coup continues to be debated, declassified documents reveal a deeper relationship between the CIA and the DINA concerning the political operations designed to eliminate the political opponents of Pinochet.

According to a series of documents declassified on September 19, 2000, the CIA “maintained contact with Manuel Contreras Sepúlveda” between 1974 and 1977. The report added that Contreras was “necessary to accomplish the CIA’s mission, in spite of concerns that this relationship might lay the CIA open to charges of aiding internal political repression.”

”This is, in fact, the unraveling of a cover-up of U.S. ties to repression during the Pinochet dictatorship,” said Peter Kornbluh, a Senior Analyst for the National Security Archive.

“As a result of lessons learned in Chile, Central America and elsewhere, the CIA now carefully reviews all contacts for potential involvement in human rights abuses and makes a deliberate decision balancing the nature and severity of the human rights abuse against the potential intelligence value of continuing the relationship,” a 2000 Senate report stated. “These standards, established in the mid 1990’s, would likely have altered the amount of contact we had with perpetrators of human rights violators in Chile.”

SOURCES: LA TERCERA, EL MERCURIO, THE NEW YORK TIMES, US NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVES
By Jason Snyder