Chile asks U.S. to extradite suspects in 1976 murder of diplomat

[Judi Lynn]

Chile asks U.S. to extradite suspects in 1976 murder of diplomat

Tue May 17, 2016 1:48pm EDT
Related: World, United Nations


Chile's Supreme Court asked the United States on Tuesday to extradite three former agents who worked for Augusto Pinochet's 1973-90 military dictatorship and are suspected of the murder of a United Nations diplomat 40 years ago.

In a unanimous verdict, the court asked that the United States hand over Chilean Armando Fernandez Larios, American Michael Townley and Cuban Virgilio Paz. All three are wanted in Chile for the detention, torture, and killing of Spanish-Chilean citizen Carmelo Soria on July 14, 1976.

According to the courts, Soria was arrested as he traveled home from his office in Santiago at the United Nations' Latin American arm. He was taken by the DINA, Pinochet's feared secret police force, to a torture center in the outskirts of the city.

Soria's body was later found in his damaged car in a roadside ditch in an apparent attempt to make his death seem like a drunk driving crash, according to investigators.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-crime-extradition-idUSKCN0Y8296?rpc=401

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141453616

[center]



Michael Townley



Virgilio Paz, blue shirt [/center]
Refering to Virgilio Paz and his connection to the Bushes:

In November 2000, Posada was arrested again, along with three other anti-Castro militants for plotting to assassinate Castro during the Ibero-American summit in Panama. All of the arrested men had impressive rap sheets and had been charter members of the terrorist groups CORU or Omega 7. In April 2004, Panama's Supreme Court sentenced Posada and his associates to up to eight years in prison, but in August the quartet was sprung by a surprise pardon from departing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who maintains good relations with Miami's political leadership. Her pardon outraged U.S and Latin American law enforcement officials.

Three of the men were flown to Miami and met by their jubilant supporters just days before the 2004 presidential election. But Posada disappeared -- until his emergence here last month.

The quartet are not the only unsavory characters to be given the red carpet in Miami. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen, with the backing of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, wrote letters on behalf of several exile militants held in U.S. prisons for acts of political violence. Some were released in 2001, including Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel and Virgilio Paz Romero, both convicted for the notorious 1976 car bomb-murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and his American assistant Ronnie Moffitt, in Washington. Once released, instead of being deported like other non-citizen criminals, they have been allowed to settle into the good life in Miami.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58297-2005Apr16.html

[leveymg]

1. WaPo obscures this: at least five of them were involved in a bomb murder in Washington, DC.

Last edited Tue May 17, 2016, 05:49 PM - Edit history (3)

The Letelier assassination occurred with the foreknowledge of Henry Kissinger. Furthermore, GHW Bush, then the CIA Director, let Townley and another DINA assassin into the US despite the fact that he was on the terrorist watch list, and then obstructed the FBI murder investigation (sound familiar?). What are these guys still doing running around loose in America? Reagan used to say, "We don't negotiate with terrorists." In fact, we hire and protect them.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Terrorists Who Struck Washington in 1976 Face More Murder Charges

Terrorists Who Struck Washington in 1976 Face More Murder Charges

After decades of persistence from key lawyers, Chile's Supreme Court has asked the U.S. government to extradite three former Chilean secret police agents in connection with the murder of United Nations diplomat Carmelo Soria in Chile in July 1976. All three of these men were also involved in the Letelier-Moffitt assassination.


By Sarah Anderson, May 18, 2016.

Forty years ago, agents of the Chilean dictatorship assassinated two colleagues at my organization, the Institute for Policy Studies, less than a mile from our office in downtown Washington, DC. The murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Karpen Moffitt was a devastating blow to their families, friends, colleagues, and human rights supporters around the world. But over the decades, this brutal act has also led to important legal precedents— and some measures of justice.

Now comes news of another possible measure of justice. On May 17, Chile’s Supreme Court asked the U.S. government to extradite three former Chilean secret police agents. The request is in connection with the murder of United Nations diplomat Carmelo Soria in Chile in July 1976.

All three of these men were also involved in the Letelier-Moffitt assassination. And this current trial could help make up for the fact that none of them served lengthy sentences for a crime that, until 9/11, was the most notorious act of international terrorism in U.S. history.

Michael Townley, a hired American hitman for the Chilean secret police, pled guilty in 1978 to organizing the Letelier-Moffitt assassination. In the book Assassination on Embassy Row, John Dinges and Saul Landau explain how Townley crawled under Letelier’s car outside his suburban Washington home in the early morning hours of September 19, 1976 and attached a bomb with electrical tape.

More:
http://www.ips-dc.org/terrorists-struck-washington-1976-face-murder-charges/