A landmark verdict has been delivered in a Chilean court, where three former agents of Augusto Pinochet's secret police have been convicted for their roles in the 1976 Washington DC car bomb attack that shook international relations. The brutal assault on Orlando Letelier, a former minister and ambassador to the US, and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, an American colleague, has finally seen perpetrators held accountable nearly five decades after the devastating event.
The three men, Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga, worked for Dina, Pinochet's feared secret police agency, which was notorious for its ruthless suppression of opposition both at home and abroad. According to court findings, the agents hatched a plan to carry out extrajudicial killings on foreign soil under the direction of Manuel Contreras, then head of Dina. Surveillance operations were also conducted on Letelier, laying bare the true extent of the agency's reach.
The case had been reopened in 2012 following an appeals court ruling that Moffitt's case must be re-examined due to the perpetrators being Chilean nationals. Judge Paola Plaza has now sentenced the men to 15 years in prison, marking a significant milestone in Chile's efforts to confront its troubled past.
The attack had far-reaching consequences for US-Chile relations, contributing to a deterioration of ties between the two nations. In response, the US Congress launched an investigation and imposed an arms embargo on Chile, while Pinochet's regime was forced to disband Dina – albeit quietly replacing it with a rebranded intelligence agency, CNI, just months later.