Word: townley
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...Something has happened in the District of Columbia." Two days after receiving this cryptic phone message from an accomplice, Michael Townley, 33, an American-born agent of Chile's secret police (DINA), flew home to Santiago from Miami, his mission accomplished. It was to assassinate Orlando Letelier, 42, a self-exiled former Chilean Ambassador and eloquent critic of the military junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet. Letelier was killed in Washington on Sept. 21, 1916, by a remote-controlled bomb planted in his blue Chevelle; killed with him was an American aide, Ronni Moffit...
...evidence for the 15 page indictment came from Townley, who was named as an unindicted coconspirator. He had been reluctantly turned over to the U.S. in April by Chilean Officials-only after the U.S. had threatened to break diplomatic relations. Townley was offered leniency by investigators in return for his testimony. The indictment states that he, Espinoza and Fernández set up the assassination on orders from Contreras and that the Cubans helped carry out the actual bombing...
...Moffitt points especially to the crackdown on members of the PDC, who began in 1976 to openly criticize the Pinochet government for the ruin they say it is inflicting on the Chilean people. Though Leigh is a former member of Patria y Libertad, a right-wing group of which Townley was also a member during the administration of former Chilean president Salvador Allende, Moffitt-believes that a government with both Frei and Leigh could change the human rights situation in Chile. "I think Frei would probably try to get some form of limited civilian rule back into the country...
Moffitt says that the Pinochet government turned Townley over hoping he would not talk. Pinochet would like to make the assassination look like it was the work of Patria y Libertad so that he can dissociate himself from Townley and at the same time discredit Leigh, Moffitt says, adding that Pinochet was forced to deport Townley because he couldn't deny that Townley was issued an official passport. An interesting sidelight Moffitt mentions is a subscandal involving Guillermo Ossorio, the man who issued the passports to Townley and Larios. Ossorio died on October 21, 1977, after last being seen with...
Moffitt claims the FBI is "terrified that the Cubans are going to kill Townley before he ever gets to the grand jury," because he theoretically knows a lot of behind-the-scenes information on both the anti-Castro Cubans and DINA. "I think that he's the kind of character that could plea bargain for a lesser charge, and talk about the other people," Moffitt claimed prior to the report last week that Townley is indeed prepared to talk in order to reduce his sentence. "Although the problem with that is, if he does, he'll never sleep again...