HE LETELIER DISPUTE BACKGROUND FACTUAL AND SUMMARy INTRODUCTION On 21 1976 Orlando Letelier September was assassinated on the streets of Washington D C when a bomb exploded underneath his automobile Killed along with Letelier a former Chilean Ambassador to the United States and cabinet member was Ronni Moffitt an assistant to Letelier and a passenaer in his car Letelier's second passenger Ronni's husband Michael Moffitt was injured by the explosion what follows is a brief account as understood by the United States Government of the events leading up to and rollowing the murder of Orlando Letelier it reflects information that is available to the United States which has been presented to United States courts and which may be presented more fully at an appropriate time The account is intenaed as an orienting summary It is not an exhaustive statement of all of the facts possessed by the United States Government to tne United States shows that of Chile planned and participated in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and obstructed through acts of deception and evasion efforts to prosecute those individua s responsible for this act The evidence senior available officials of the Government States has substantial evidence in its This evidence includes the confessions and statements of two agents of the Chilean Department of National Intelligence DINA Michael Townley and Armando Fernandez both participants in the assassination of Orlando Letelier as well as statements by the wife of one of these aaents herself a DINA agent The evidence also includes statements by Michael Moffitt the surviving passenger American investigators of the Letelier assassination an explosives expert the Director of the Paraauayan Intelligence Service in 1976 a LAN-Chile the Chilean national airline employee several DINA employees who worxed for one of the participant-confessors an individual connecting a DINA participant to a CNM Cuban anti-Castro revolutionary group participant in the assassination two Venezuelan intelligence officers several Chilean The United possession military intelligence revolutionaries corroborating and two Cuban anti-Castro is supported by an extensive evidence Documentary material and the accounts ot the participant-confessors This testimonial collection of officers evidence documentary Clg i-SI 00307 U S De a epar ment DEFIED of S others include telephone records flight mani fests bills stubs receipts photographs passports identification cards and documents simulation film visa applications immigration forms diplomatic cables and various assorted documents he combination of testimonial and documentary evidence demonstrates that certain officials and employees of the Government of Chile planned and participated in the assassination of Orlando Letelier and the subsequent obstruction of its investigation payment HISTORICAL BACKGROUND In September 1970 Salvador Allende was elected president He chose Orlando Letelier to serve as Ambassador to the United States Letelier occupied this post in washington D C for almost three years returning to Chile to assume the first of several cabinet positions in May 1973 Several months later in September 1973 Orlando Leteli er was arrested by Chilean military officers Letelier spent twelve months in confinement berore ne was released and expelled from Chi3e of Chile In late 1974 Letelier returned to Washington D C to accept a position at the Institute for Policy Studies During his time there he developed iriendships with two of his assistants Ronni and Michael Moffitt and became recognized as an articulate oppo nent of the Chilean Government In response to Leteli er's acti vism the Government of Chile revoked Letelier's citizen ship during the middle of 1976 THE ASSASSINATION PREPARATIONS AND EXECUTION The evidence available to the United States indicates the assassination was carried out in the following manner In late June or early July 1976 Colonel pedro Espinoza Director of Operations for DINA instructed Michael Vernon Townley an expatriate United States citizen living in Chile and Armando Fernandez a lieutenant in the Chilean Army to participate in of a mission the result of which would be the assassination Orlando Letelier Townley nad been recruited to join DINA two years earlier and during the interim had performed several missions for DINA in the United States and elsewhere including with Cuban exile members of CNM in attempted collaborating assassinations of Chilean opposition leaders Espinoza and Juan Manuel Contreras the Director of DINA ordered Townley and Fernandez to paraguay to obtain paraguayan passports and visas under pseudonyms for entry into the United States After about a week in paraguay Townley and Fernandez received the rake documents however the U S Ambassador to paraguay George Landau became suspicious and photocopied the visa applications and accompanying passports One week later having become more suspicious Ambassador Landau revoked the visas He also asked Paraguayan officials to retrieve the false passports from Chile The passports were returned unused although the photographs were removed Despite the problems encountered in Paraguay to obtain false documents Contreras and Espinoza decided to proceed with the plan to assassinate Letelier They ordered Fernandez to travel to the United States to su rveil Letelier Fernanoez would be accompanied by a female DINA agent using the pseudonym Liliana Walker The DINA leaders also sent two other agents Captains Riveros and Mosquiera to the United States using Chilean passports bearing the same names as utilized in the Paraguayan visa applicants with the intention of covering for Riveros and Mosquiera the failed paraguayan passport mission entered the United States on August 22 1976 staying for two weeks Fernandez and walker arri ved on August 26 using Chilean passports bearing the aliases adopted for the m'ssion During August Espinoza also met with Townley and conveyed orders that the mission was still on and that Townley should meet with leaders of the CNM and secure their assistance Espinoza suggested that Townley should convince the Cubans to kill Letelier and make Letelier's murder look like a suicide or accident However Townley was specifically authorized to participate directly and to use a bomb if necessary traveling with a false Chilean passport arrived York's Kennedy Airport aboard a LAN-Chile plane on september 9 He carried with him tri-nitrate of lead and blasting caps Under the instructions of Colonel Espinoza Fernandez turned Fernandez met with Townley at the airport over to Townley a map Letelier's address notes and some cash at Townley New Townley rented a car and drove to New Jersey where he contacted an old associate CNM member Virgilio paz Through paz Townley met the next day with Guillermo Novo and Dionisio Suarez two leaders of the CNM At this meeting Townley asked Several the two Cubans to cooperate in the Letelier killing days Iater the cubans agreed to participate On the night New Jersey of September 15 1976 Townley and Paz drove to Washington D C They carried with them a modified Fanon-Courier remote electronic paging device plastic explosives and TNT all supplied by the CNM For the next two days Townley and paz watched Letelier's daily movements On September 18 Suarez joined Paz and Townley in Washington D C bringing with him the blasting cap used in the explosive device In Washington the conspirators purchased baking tins tape and gloves at a 'Sears store and a battery pack with leads slide switches and tools at a Radio Shack store That night September 18 1976 Townley Paz and Suarez constructed the of bomb and Townley attached the device to the undercarriage irom Orlando Leteli er' s automobile On September 19 Townley flew to Newark New Jersey and was Before flying from met by Alvin Ross Diaz another CNM member Newark to Miami Florida Townley went to Kennedy Airport and a false immigration form to indicate that the person identity he used on entering the United States had departed for Spain In Miami on September 20 and 21 Townley with CNM leader Felipe Rivero and Ignacio met respectively brother On September 21 Townley learned Novo Guillermo's that a numb had exploded in washington 0 c killing orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt and injuring Michael Moffitt Townley would later learn from virgilio paz that the bomb had malfunctioned on the scheduled September 20 attempt and that Paz and Suarez had removed the bomb corrected the malfunction the device prior to its September 21 and reinstalled detonation Having successfully completed his mission submitted whose Townley returned left Miami on September to Santiago THE Chile 22 aboard LAN-Chile and INITIAL INVESTIGATION immediately began The United States Government investigating the murder of Letelier The first break in the of was the discovery of the participation U S investigation Ross Alvin and Guil lermo Novo Virgilio paz Dionisio Suarez and that DINA might also be involved from the United During June and July 1977 investigators of Bureau States Department of Justice and the Federal Government of Investigation requested the assistance of the and Cubans the between Chile in their investigations of links a of period After Chilean government officials and employees statement written delay the Chilean Government provided a which was misleading at best The V S discovered through sources that there was a the Letelier killing and the trip to the United States by two persons using Chilean passports bearing the same names as those who had applied for visas in paraguay in July 1976 As a result the United States sent formal Letters Rogatory to the Chilean Supreme Court on February 17 1978 which requested the Chilean Government to produce for questioning the individuals who had entered the United States using those names connection between After the Chilean Supreme Court received the Letters Rogatory Nosquiera and Riveros appeared to testify in compliance with the Letters Rogatory However the Chilean Supreme Court refused to recognize the appearance of Mosquiera and Riveros 'as compliance with the Letters Rogatory The U S request had included the pictures that Ambassador Landau had photocopied in paraguay — pictures of Townley and Fernandez These pictures appeared in the press in Chile The Chilean Government thereupon produced Townley and Fernandez Contreras ordered Townley and Fernandez to lie to the Court suggesting cover-up stories for each of them In court on Harch 31 1978 Fernandez as instructed lied repeatedly about his involvement in the events surrounding and the Leteli er assassination Townley as an American citizen invoked the privilege against self- incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States 7 1978 Earl Silbert the U S Attorney for the reached an agreement with En ique Nontero Chilean Undersecretary of the Interior whereby Townley was expelled rrom Chile and returned to the United States In the United States Townley refused to talk until he met with Chilean General Hector Orozco a special military prosecutor conducting an investigation into the matter After On APril District of Columbia with Orozco and receiving permission to give a statement to the United States authorities Townley provided the American offiicals with extensive details of his involvement and that of senior-level Chilean officials in the planning execution and cover-up of the Letelier murder meeting confession in the United States Orozco to Chile and obtained statements from Fernandez in the and Contreras concerning their involvement statement assassination However after hearing Contreras' Orozco's investigation efforts ceased and he became an active participant in a growing cover-up to mask the roles of Chilean officers in the assassination of Orlando Letelier Upon returned Espinoza Townley's THE EXTRADITION PROCEEDINGS On August 1 1978 a grand jury in washington D C indicted Contreras Espinoza Fernandez and five Cubans with various crimes stemming rrom their participation in the murder of Letelier Of the eight persons indicted Alvin Ross and Ignacio and Guillermo Novo were then in custody Paz and Suarez were still fugitives and the three Chileans were in Chile States issued a formal and Fernandez to September 21 1978 During the next Fernandez and Espinoza to lie at the The United Contreras Fspinoza extradition request for the Government of Chile on several weeks Orozco told extradition proceedings to be destroyed the truthful statements given by Fernandez and Espinoza several months earlier president Pinochet also met with Fernandez and told him be a good soldier tough it out and this problem will have a happy end On October 17 1978 Contreras Espinoza and Fernandez lied under oath before the Chilean Supreme Court providing fallacious cover stories for the trips to paraguay and the United States On Nay 13 1979 Israel Horquez president of the Chilean Supreme Court refused to extradite any of the three Chileans to the United States On October I 1979 the full Chilean Supreme Court also rejected the U S extradition he Chilean Supreme Court also ordered all Chilean request investigations into these matters suspended and caused THE CRININAL AND CIVIL CASES IN THE UNITED STATES Following the indictments handed down in August 1978 the United States instituted criminal proceedings again t the three Cubans in custody Ignacio and Guillermo Novo and Alvin Ross On February 14 1979 after a six week trial Ross and Guillermo Novo were convicted of murder and conspiracy the Novo brothers were convicted of lying to a grand jury and convicted of misprison of a felony On September 15 1980 however a federal appellate court overturned the convictions of Ross and Guillermo Novo on grounds that key evidence nad improperly been obtained and overturned the conviction of Ignacio Novo on the ground that he should have received a separate trial On retrial Guillermo Novo was found guilty of lying to a grand jury and subsequently Ignacio Novo pleaded guilty to lying to a grand jury Ignacio Novo was Because many o'f the leading conspirators in the plot to assassinate Orlando Letelier were not brought before a United States court the United States was severely hampered in its prosecution of the case The effort to conduct a thorough and fair investigation was met by actions by Chilean government officials which shielded the accused parties from responsibility for their illegal actions Also following the criminal indictments Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt filed a the families of civil suit against the perpetrators of the Letelier assassination including the Republic of Chile When all defendants failed to answer default judgments were entered However atter Chile sent a court jurisdiction the diplomatic note contesting U S district court agreed to review tne jurisdictional issue On March 11 1980 the court held that Chile was not immune from the gurisciction of U S courts in the particular circumstances of this case The Government of Chile failed to appeal the ruling or participate in the trial on the merits On November 5 1980 the court entered judgment in favor of the plaintiffs for approximately 45 000 000 holding the defendants jointly and severally liable Neither Chile nor the individual defendants appealed The families of Letelier and Moffitt then brought suit against LAN-Chile an airline wholly owned by the Government of Chile to execute the judgment against the Republic of Chile The district court ruled in favor of the families appointing Michael Moffitt as receiver for LAN-Chile's assets On appeal however the federal appellate court held that LAN-Chile's separate juridical existence had to be recognized despite the fact that it was wholly owned by the Government of Chile The Court stated that the families would have to look directly to The United States Supreme Chile to satisfy their judgment appeal Court denied certiorari on the judgment-creditors' Thus the families of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt exhausted their legal remedies in the United States in pursuit of obtaining compensation irom the Republic of Chile RECENT DEVELOPMENTS In 1985 a chilean military court granted Contreras' request to dismiss in its entirety the suspended investigation The Letelier family a civil into the Letelier assassination party to the suit under Chilean law appealed this decision occurred in the a major development As the appeal was pending case on January 22 1987 Armando Fernandez voluntarily left Chile and subsequently entered the Unit'ed States Hernandez voluntari'y turned himself over to United States authorities and agreed to testify fully and truthfully and plead guilty to the charge of being an accessory after the fact to the murder of an internationally protected person Fernandez' testimony corroborated almost entirely Michael Townley's earlier statements reconfirming and adding to the extensive body of evidence linking highly-placed Chilean officials to the -Leteli er assassination and cover-up this evidence the United States formally from Chile of Contreras and Espinoza on May 11 1987 On May 22 a Chilean military court of appeal reversed the decision of the lower court and ordered that the investigation be returned to the status of suspended rather than closed However on June 17 the Government of Chile rejected the U S request for expulsion Armed requested with new the expulsion On July 17 1987 the United States to Chile asking the Chilean Government and Espinoza in Chile if it refused to States On July 28 the United states ex gratia compensation to the families sent a diplomatic note to prosecute Contreras expel them to the United requested Chile to pay of Letelier and Moffitt the Letelier family petitioned the lower court to reopen the investigation Later that month the Chilean Government sent two notes to the United States thp first refusing to expel or prosecute Contreras and Espinoza and the second rejecting any form of compensation for the fami'ies of the victims On October 13 the Chilean military court refused to reopen its investigation The Letelier family once again filed an appeal In August military to its investigation the U S Government transmitted to the Chilean Supreme Court a Letter Rogatory requesting General Orozco to furnish information about his and knowledge of many aspects of the Letelier assassination cover-up On April 14 1988 the Chilean Supreme Court required general Orozco to answer only 12 of the approximately 250 questions put to him The 12 questions were among the most routine of the questions asked and his answers proved to be minimally informative To add Due to the virtual exhaustion of domestic legal oroceed'ngs both in the United States and Chile and the Government of Chile's continued refusal to cooperate with diplomatic and legal requests for assistance the United States in mid-April formally espoused the claims of its U S citizens arising out of the Letelier assassination demanding that the Government of Chile compensate the United States and the families of the victims On May 24 the Government of Chile formally rejected the U S demands appeals court upheld of the lower court to reopen the investigation and t' he Letelier family again appealed This last hope of obtaining some cooperation rrom the Chilean Government was extinguished in July 1988 when the Chilean Supreme Court denied the appeal affirming the decision to keep the investigation in suspension On May the refusal 4 1988 the Chilean military The United States continues to demand in bringing this matter to a satisfactory DEPARTMENT JANUARY OF STATE 1989 that Chile cooperate resolution