Michael Townley (Waterloo, Iowa, United States, 1942) wrote in Santiago, Chile, on March 13, 1978: “First of all, if there is sufficient reason to open this envelope, I charge the Chilean Government with my death.” On behalf of the then director of the Chilean Gestapo, state the names of five senior officers. Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA)Manuel Contreras would carry out his duty to execute him. He himself was the international assassin of the General Augusto Pinochet dictatorship between 1974 and 1978, along with those who would now be his potential executioners. Townley, 81, survived and was able to survive after the money he spent. five years in an American prison for murder Orlando LetelierFormer Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Salvador Allende government, living under the program’s umbrella in Washington, D.C., in 1976 United States Federal Witness Protection Agency.
The National Security Archive (NSA), a non-governmental organization housed at George Washington University, published it on November 21. six handwritten lettersFrom Townley (written by the North American Department of Justice) describes his activities with two operational groups of the Chilean Gestapo in the house provided to him by the regime in the fashionable neighborhood of Lo Curro. where are he and his wife Mariana CallejasA writer and DINA agent, he held meetings with right-wing intellectuals and politicians, washed down with pisco sour, whiskey and caviar, while they were tortured in the basement and investigated in a laboratory set up by an explosives expert, the future Townley. . use of sarin gasDINA, a neurotoxic, odorless and invisible substance discovered in Germany in 1938, was being studied for its application in the suppression of opponents of Pinochet.
In the first of the letters (see reproduction), Townley describes how the members of the so-called group were. DINA’s Mulchen Brigade They kidnapped the economist responsible for publications at ECLAC (Latin American Economic Commission – United Nations) Carmelo Soria (1921–1976), grandson of Spanish urban planner Arturo Soria (1844-1920), designer of the so-called cartoon city in Madrid Member of the Communist Party of Spain Before going to Santiago.
“They brought this man to my house and killed him in the front yard of my house because he had no other place. physical methods The night they kidnapped him and put him in a vehicle [al que] They cleared the road from Pirán to Concholi. The kidnapping was carried out using a uniform Chilean police“, it reads. It omits the horrific torture Soria was subjected to.
We had to wait many years for Carmelo Soria’s crime to finally be tried in Santiago in 2019 and his conviction, thanks to the tireless struggle of his six murderers. Laura González-VeraShe is the daughter of National Literary Award winner José Santos González-Vera and his daughter Carmen Soria. Townley was also sentenced to three years in prison in New York’s District of Columbia. compensation that you never paid. The Supreme Court of Chile approved –47 years after the events – 2019 decision last September 2023.
In other letters, Townley describes murder of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier in Washington, where he participated up to the point plant the bomb Under the car that was about to explode on Embassy Boulevard in North America’s capital on September 21, 1976.
There is a gap between major crimes. It comes from the former commander-in-chief of the Chilean army. Carlos Prats GonzálezTownley in Buenos Aires in 1974. Townley placed the bomb under Prats’ car and was at the scene when his wife, Mariana Callejas, was unable to operate the remote control, it was proven in the case against him in Argentina. responsible for causing the explosion second try.
What appears from the letters is that this operation is described by Townley in another letter he gave to his father, Vernon Townley, who came to Chile with his family in 1957 to manage the group. Ford Motor Company. Its contents are never known.
“That’s true. “We don’t know that letter.” The group Prensa Ibérica, which is responsible for the project to declassify NSA documents, tells El Periódico de Catalunya: Peter Kornbluh, He emphasizes that “this is the first time that Townley’s complete handwritten letters have been known.”
These letters were requested from the Biden Government, but look, Kornbluh assigned the Chilean journalist. Pascale Bonnefoy mission to find them in Chile. They remained in the archives of the Chilean president, who took office after the first democratic elections in Chile, Patrick Alwyn. “These did not belong to what we could call a private archive in any way,” Kornbluh explains.
For his part, the Chilean ambassador in Washington, Juan Gabriel Valdes, highlighting what’s pending. “Janet Reno, the Clinton Administration’s chief advisor, authorized an investigation into Pinochet’s role in the assassination of Orlando Letelier. Due to the 50th anniversary of the military coup, I forwarded my government’s request to the Biden Administration, but I did not receive it. This investigation took place in the spring of 2000, following Pinochet’s arrest in London and in parallel with his release. Apparently the advice was: sue Pinochet In the United States, however, it did not materialize. He was interrogated by an FBI team through Chilean judge Alfredo Etchebere and a Chilean lawyer. 42 peopleThere are army generals among them. This material is unknown.”