Investigation and Prosecution
Investigators initially determined that the explosion was caused by a plastic bomb, molded to concentrate the force of its blast into the driver seat. The bomb was attached by wires or magnets to the car's underside and blew a "circular hole, 2 to 2½ feet in diameter" in the driver's seat. The bomb was not believed to have been controlled by a timing device or a remote-controlled detonator.
In the days after the incident, spokespersons for the United States Department of State said the department "expresses its gravest concern about Dr. Orlando Letelier's death". Due to the assassination of Prats and the attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton, the incident was believed to have been the latest of a series of state-sponsored assassination attempts against Chilean political exiles. A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that this was the first incident of violence against Chilean exiles on American soil, according to agency records.
The FBI eventually were convinced that Michael Townley, a DINA US expatriate who had once worked for the CIA, had organized the assassination of Orlando Letelier. Townley and Armando Fernandez Larios, who was also implicated in the murder, had been given visas by Robert White, the United States ambassador to Paraguay, at the urging of the Paraguayan government despite their having false Paraguayan passports.
In 1978, Chile agreed to extradite Townley to the United States. During his U.S. trial, Townley confessed that he had hired five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to booby-trap Letelier's car. According to Jean-Guy Allard, after consultations with the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (CORU) leadership, including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those elected to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll . According to the Miami Herald, Luis Posada Carriles was at this meeting, which formalized details that led to Letelier's death and also the Cubana bombing two weeks later. Townley also agreed to provide evidence against these men in exchange for a deal that involved his pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to commit murder and being given a ten year sentence. His wife, Mariana Callejas, also agreed to testify in exchange for not being prosecuted.
On January 9, 1979 the trial of the Novo Sampoll brothers and Díaz began in Washington. General Pinochet refused to allow Romero and Suárez, who were DINA officers, to be extradited. All three were found guilty of murder. Guillermo Novo and Díaz were sentenced to life imprisonment. Ignacio Novo received eighty years. Soon after the trial, Townley was freed under the Witness Protection Program.
In 1987 Larios fled Chile with the assistance of the FBI, claiming he feared that Pinochet was planning to kill him because he refused to co-operate in cover-up activities related to the Letelier murder. On February 4, 1987, Larios pled guilty to one count of acting as an accessory to the murder. In exchange for the plea and information about the plot, the authorities dropped the charges.
Several other people were also prosecuted and convicted for the murder. Among them were General Manuel Contreras, former head of the DINA, and Brigadier Pedro Espinoza Bravo, also formerly of the DINA. Contreras and Espinoza were convicted in Chile on November 12, 1993, and sentenced to seven and six years of prison respectively.
Pinochet, who died on December 10, 2006, was never charged in relation to this case. Orlando Letelier's son, representative Juan Pablo Letelier, gave this testimony: "What I have said once and again because I was taught to say the truth is that there is no evidence whatsoever from the thousands of pages of the process that may allow to affirm that there was participation of the Chilean Army nor of its Commander in Chief (general Pinochet) in the assassination of Orlando Letelier" (El Mercurio, June 4, 1995).
Read more about this topic: Letelier Case
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