Investigations
Chilean police at first declared Huber's death to be a suicide. In 1996, Magistrate María Soledad Espina, in charge of investigations concerning Huber's case, categorically excluded the possibility of suicide. Despite this, the case remained dormant until Magistrate Claudio Pavez took over the case in September 2005; he subsequently found the death of Huber to be a homicide. Pavez has since accused the civilian police of obstruction of justice in relation to the investigation.
On 7 March 2006, Magistrate Pavez indicted five retired high-ranking military officers on charges of conspiracy to cover up Huber's assassination. They included General Eugenio Covarrubias, head of the Dirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE, or the Military Intelligence Directorate, DINA's successor) in 1992; General Víctor Lizárraga, then Deputy-Director of DINE; General Krumm; Brigadier Manuel Provis Carrasco, then head of the Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército (BIE, or the Military Intelligence Agency); and Captain Julio Muñoz, a friend of Huber and former member of the BIE.
General Krumm testified to Magistrate Pavez that the arms deal had been directly approved by President Pinochet. Following statements made by Captain Pedro Araya, Krumm confirmed a meeting was held prior to the deal. According to Araya, Richard Quass, director of Operations of the Army; General Florienco Tejos, chief of War Materiel; General Jaime Concha, Commandant of Military Institutions; General Guido Riquelme, Chief Commandant of the 2nd Army Division; General Guillermo Skinner; and General Krumm all attended the meeting.
Captain Araya, who had been sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the arms deal, turned state's evidence in 2005 and declared that he had acted under orders from the military hierarchy. He also stated that Pinochet "had full knowledge of this sale, since he was in close communication with the director of Famae and made available on the army's part the arms that were sold by Famae." Further, official documents state that money from the arms deal was funneled into Pinochet's personal bank accounts abroad. Evidence presented suggested that Famae head General Letelier may have been complicit in laundering the funds.
Another witness and defendant in the case, Jorge Molina Sanhueza, testified in March 2006 that on 22 January 1992, shortly before Huber's assassination, he had a private meeting with Pinochet upon returning from a trip to Israel. General Lizárraga, the number two man at DINE, had previously denied this meeting took place. Eventually, both General Lizárraga and General Covarrubias admitted to the magistrate that Pinochet personally headed the BIE, which the former dictator declared his nescience of.
According to Pavez' investigations, between his "disappearance" and the discovery of his corpse, Colonel Huber had been detained in a secret military installation operated by Chilean intelligence. Pavez has suggested that Huber had been kidnapped by BIE agents and transferred to a secret detention center of the Escuela de Inteligencia del Ejército (EIE, School of Army Intelligence) in Nos, which was also the location of the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Army Laboratory). The laboratory was headed in 1992 by General Covarrubias. Along with Manuel Provis, one of the main suspects in the Huber assassination, Covarrubias also allegedly detained DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos in September 1991 before sending him to Argentina and then Uruguay. Covarrubias was also indicted for the kidnapping and murder of Berríos, who was killed in Uruguay in 1995.
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