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Michael Townley

January 01, 1970

For the Australian politician, see Michael Townley (politician). For the Grand Theft Auto V character, see Michael De Santa.

Michael Vernon Townley (born December 5, 1942, in Waterloo, Iowa) is an American-born former agent of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA), the secret police of Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet.[1] In 1978, Townley pleaded guilty to the 1976 murders of Orlando Letelier, former Chilean ambassador to the United States, and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, Letelier's co-worker at the Institute for Policy Studies. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, serving 62 months.[2] As part of his plea bargain, Townley received immunity from further prosecution; he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires.[2]

Michael Townley
Born
Michael Vernon Townley

(1942-12-05) December 5, 1942 (age 81)
Waterloo, Iowa
Nationality United States Chile
OccupationAssassin
OrganizationDirección de Inteligencia Nacional
SpouseMariana Callejas
Conviction(s)Assassination of Orlando Letelier
Attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton (in absentia)

In 1993, Townley was also convicted in absentia by an Italian court of carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton.[3] Townley worked in producing chemical weapons for DINA which would be used against Pinochet regime political opponents,[4][5][6][7] along with Colonel Gerardo Huber[8] and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos.[9] He has long maintained status as a protected witness.[10][11][3]

Early life edit

In 1957, Townley moved to Chile with his father, Vernon Townley, who became head of the Ford Motor Company in Chile. He worked as a salesman of mutual fund stocks. In 1967, he moved to Miami with his family and worked as a mechanic in Miami's Little Havana, where he became friends with anti-Castro exiles.[12]

In 1970, Townley moved his family back to Chile. Townley later testified that, before leaving the US, he contacted the CIA to offer his services in Chile, however Townley said he never worked for the CIA.[12] Back in Chile, Townley ran a clandestine anti-Allende radio station and worked with violent opposition groups. He fled Chile in the months before the 1973 coup which overthrew Allende. Townley then returned to Chile and was recruited by the DINA.[12]

1974 assassination of Carlos Prats edit

Michael Townley was responsible for the assassination of General Carlos Prats, who served as a minister in Salvador Allende's government while Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. Immediately after the 1973 coup, Prats went into exile in Argentina.

DINA chief Manuel Contreras tasked Townley with the assassination of Prats. Townley spent three weeks in Buenos Aires monitoring Prats and planning. On September 30, 1974, Prats and his wife Sofia were killed outside their apartment in Buenos Aires by a radio-controlled car bomb. Debris reached the ninth-floor balcony of the building across the street.[13][14][15][16] In 1983, Townley entered a plea deal which would grant him immunity from prosecution.[2]

1975 Bernardo Leighton assassination attempt edit

Main article: Attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton

In March 1993, Townley was convicted and sentenced in absentia in Italy to an 18-year prison sentence, with two years remission, over his role as an intermediary between the DINA and Italian neo-fascist terrorist organizations, including Avanguardia Nazionale.[3] However, he was still a member of the United States witness protection;[3] at the time of Enrique Arancibia Clavel's arrest in May 2000 for murder of Carlos Prats, it was acknowledged that Townley was left as a member of witness protection following the Orlando Letelier case.[10]

Michael Townley also stated that Arancibia had traveled to California in the autumn of 1977 on banking business for ALFA, alias Stefano Delle Chiaie.[17] Enrique Arancibia is a former DINA agent who resided in unofficial exile in Buenos Aires after the assassination of Chilean Army Chief of Staff René Schneider on October 25, 1970. Arancibia was arrested by Argentine intelligence officers shortly after the extradition of Townley to the US and charged with espionage.[18]

Convicted for Orlando Letelier's murder edit

Main article: Assassination of Orlando Letelier

Townley was convicted in the United States of the 1976 murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington, D.C. During his trial, he said that Pinochet was responsible for planning the murder. Manuel Contreras, head of the DINA, also stated that Pinochet planned the assassination of both Prats and Letelier.[16] Townley served 62 months in prison for the murder.[19]

Townley confessed that he had hired five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to booby-trap Letelier's car. According to Jean-Guy Allard, after consultations with the leadership of the anti-Castro Cuban organization Coordinación de Organizaciones Revolutionarias Unidas (CORU), including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, those chosen to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz, and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampol.[20] According to the Miami Herald, Luis Posada Carriles was also at this meeting, which decided on Letelier's death and also about the Cubana Flight 455 bombing. Townley was the prosecution's chief witness at the trial for Ross and the Novo brothers.[21]

In April 1978, Chile agreed to extradite Townley to the United States, in order to reduce the tension resulting from Orlando Letelier's murder. However, his departure from Chile did not undergo a standard extradition process and was regarded as an expulsion.[22] In addition, Townley also sought protection from Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza.[5] He arrived in the United States on April 8, 1978.[23] He made an agreement with the US government on April 17, 1978, which required that he only provide information relevant to violations of US law or offenses committed in US jurisdiction. Based on that argument, he refused to provide any information concerning DINA during the trial of the three Cuban defendants in Washington, D.C. in early 1979 concerning Letelier's assassination. Townley was then freed under an unofficial Witness Protection Program. The United States is still waiting for Pedro Espinoza Bravo, a former Chilean military and DINA operative also involved in the assassination of Letelier, to be extradited. DINA chief Manuel Contreras died in Santiago in 2015, without having been extradited.

In an interview with authorities on October 20, 1981, Townley declared that Castro opponent Virgilio Paz Romero brought with him a Colt .45 caliber automatic pistol when he visited Chile in the spring of 1976. According to Townley, Romero said that the weapon had recently been used in a "hit" by the Cuban Nationalist Movement and that his purpose in Chile was to use it again. Townley then said that Romero had broken the weapon in pieces and scattered the pieces throughout Santiago.

In 2005, DINA chief Manuel Contreras also told the Chilean judge responsible for trying the case that Townley had been supported for Letelier's assassination by CIA agents, as well as the Cuban Nationalist Movement and members of the Venezuela's National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services (DISIP), for which Luis Posada Carriles worked. General Vernon Walters, CIA deputy director from 1972 to 1976, informed Pinochet that Letelier represented a threat to the US and was preparing a Chilean government in exile, according to Contreras.[24] Contreras wrote in the document that "the Chilean President disposed in personal, exclusive and direct manner of the action of CIA agent Michael Townley against Mr. Orlando Letelier".

Contreras also stated that Chile's National Information Center (CNI) handed out monthly payments between 1978 and 1990 to the persons who had worked with Townley in Chile, all members of Patria y Libertad: Mariana Callejas (Townley's wife), Francisco Oyarzún, Gustavo Etchepare and Eugenio Berríos.[16] Assassinated in 1992, Berríos worked with drug traffickers and DEA agents.[25]

In December 2016, a Chilean court ruled that both Townley and former Chilean Major General Armando Fernandez Larios could be tried in Chile for these murders.[26]

Investigations edit

In 2003, Argentine Federal Judge María Servini de Cubría asked Chile for the extradition of Townley's wife, Mariana Callejas, who was accused of involvement in Carlos Prats' murder. But, in July 2005, Chilean judge Nibaldo Segura of the Court of Appeals stated that the case cannot proceed, arguing that Callejas was already being tried in Chile.

Questioned in March 2005 by Judge Alejandro Madrid about former Chilean Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei Montalva's death, Michael Townley acknowledged links between Colonia Dignidad, led by Paul Schäfer and DINA on one side and the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory of the Army) on the other. It is suspected the toxin that supposedly killed Frei Montalva in a Santa Maria clinic in 1982 was created there. This new laboratory in Colonia Dignidad would have been, according to him, the continuation of the laboratory the DINA had in Via Naranja de lo Curro where he worked with DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos; despite this claim, Townley previous acknowledged that the laboratory where he based his production of toxins was located in the basement of his home.[7] Townley would also have testified on biological experiments made upon prisoners in Colonia Dignidad with the help of the two above mentioned laboratories.[9] However, the allegation that Montalva was a murder victim was later dismissed in Chilean court.[27]

In 1992, Townley testified that the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, assassinated in 1976, had been detained at his home on Via Naranja in the sector of Lo Curro.[28] There he was tortured and, since he did not speak, subjected to sarin (which had been made by Berríos).[dubious – discuss] [29] Soria was then detained and tortured again in the Villa Grimaldi and his case was included in Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon's indictment of Pinochet.[30]

In May 2016, Chile's Supreme Court asked the United States to extradite Chilean Armando Fernandez Larios, Townley and Cuban Virgilio Paz, all three of whom were linked to the September 21, 1976, car-bombing murders in Washington, D.C. In November 2002, Soria's widow, Laura Gonzalez-Vera, along with the personal representative of Soria's estate, sued Townley seeking damages for Soria's torture and killing. When Townley defaulted, the district court entered a $7 million judgment against him.[31]

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the foreign ministry of Chile should file an extradition request to the United States for Michael Townley and Armando Fernández Larios.[32]

In May 2016, the Supreme Court of Chile asked for the extradition of Townley, Virgilio, and Armando Fernández Larios for their alleged roles in the murder of Soria in 1976.[33] As of 2015, Townley remained in the U.S. Witness Protection Program and his whereabouts were unknown.[11] In August 2023, however, it was reported that a recent conviction which was given to six former DINA agents and two former army officers would be the "final conviction" issued by the Supreme Court of Chile for Soria's murder.[34]

2023 confessions publication edit

On November 22, 2023, Townley's confessions about his four-year career as a DINA assassin were "reproduced in full and published together" for the first time by the National Security Archive.[35] Despite this, the National Security Archive's website also acknowledged that "Over the years, references to Townley's confession have appeared in books and articles as researchers and reporters gained access to Chile's judicial files."[35] In his first "confession" letter dated March 13, 1978, Townley described himself as talking part in numerous missions on behalf of DINA and "following orders from Gen. Contreras."[4] In another "confession," dated March 14, 1978, Townley detailed how he was recruited by DINA officials in 1974 and how he served DINA's lead international assassin.[7] He would be given a mansion in the upper-class Lo Curro neighborhood of Santiago, be instructed to build a chemical warfare laboratory in his basement, and get appointed to lead a special DINA unit called the “Agrupación Avispa”—the Wasp Group—which operated under DINA's Mulchén Brigade and was “dedicated to elimination” of opponents of the Pinochet regime.[7] He also confessed to the murders of two Chileans, - real estate conservator Renato León Zenteno (1976) and Army corporal and DINA agent Manuel Leyton (1977)- using sarin nerve gas that he manufactured in the chemical laboratory in his home.[7] In a U.S. Department of Justice affidavit dated August 23, 1991, U.S. Justice Department attorney Eric B. Marcy noted how the United States obtained the documents from his wife between 1982 and 1990, stating, among other things, that the confessions “were prepared by Townley prior to his expulsion from Chile in order to protect him from the fugitives Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza and to protect his expulsion from Chile."[5] The aliases which Townley used while he was a DINA agent included Juan Andres Wilson; Hans Peterson Silva; Kenneth William Enyart; and Pablo Andres Simpon Valle.[6]

In a letter from March 14, 1976, Townley noted how he received the order to assassinate Orlando Letelier from Pedro Espinoza.[36] When updating the letter after the assassination of Letelier was carried out on September 21, 1976, Townley noted how he recruited the team of American-based Cuban exiles after traveling to the United States after obtained phony visas in Paraguay.[36] Townley also claimed he received assistance from a network of individual Southern Cone secret polices known as Red Condor.[36]

Alleged role in Pablo Neruda's death edit

In 2011, an investigation was launched into the death of Pablo Neruda, partially on the strength of a statement from his driver that he was injected with a poison by a Dr. Price. Price's description matched that of Townley, and police examined this link while Neruda's body was exhumed and tested for possible toxins.[citation needed]

On November 8, 2013, the test results were released, with head of Chile's medical legal service Patricio Bustos stating that "No relevant chemical substances have been found that could be linked to Mr. Neruda's death".[37] However, Carroza said that he is waiting for the results of the last scientific test conducted in May 2015, which found that Neruda was infected with the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium, which can be highly toxic and result in death if modified.[38]

The Chilean government suggested in 2015 that it was "highly probable that a third party" was responsible for Neruda's death, and a forensics test taken through samples of Neruda's remains in 2017 rejected Neruda's "official cause of death," which had been listed as prostate cancer.[39]

However, scientists who exhumed Neruda's body in 2013 had backed claims that he was suffering from prostate cancer.[40] It was also acknowledged that Neruda's driver was the one who claimed he was poisoned.[41]

In Literature edit

In Roberto Bolaño's novel By Night in Chile (2000), the character Jimmy Thompson, an American who has been deputized by the Chilean secret police to torture opponents of the regime, is based on Michael Townley.[42]

References edit

  1. ^ Summary of Investigation, January 21, 1982, gwu.edu. Accessed July 31, 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "Diplomat's Assassin to be Freed". Washington Post. 1983-07-26.
  3. ^ a b c d Willan, Philip (11 March 1993). "Agent of Chilean secret service convicted of murder attempt". UPI.
  4. ^ a b Townley, Michael (March 13, 1978). "Townley Papers, "Confesión y Acusación [Confession and Accusation]," March 13, 1978". National Security. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  5. ^ a b c Marcy, Eric B. (August 23, 1991). "Department of Justice, "Draft; Marcy/Letelier/Affidavit," August 23, 1991 [Original in English and Spanish translation]". National Security Archive. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  6. ^ a b Townley, Michael (March 14, 1976). "Townley Papers, "Declaración de Personalidades [List of Aliases]," March 14, 1976". National Security Archive. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  7. ^ a b c d e Townley, Michael (March 14, 1978). "Townley Papers, "Historia de Actuación en DINA [History of DINA Activities]," March 14, 1978 [U.S. government transcription and pages 3-6 of original handwritten document]". National Security Archive. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  8. ^ Manuel Salazar Salvo, Roto el pacto de silencio en la inteligencia militar 2007-09-21 at the Wayback Machine, Punto Final, n°611, 24 March – 6 April 2006 (in Spanish)
  9. ^ a b Michael Townley fue interrogado por muerte de Frei Montalva, Radio Cooperativa, 30 March 2005 (in Spanish)
  10. ^ a b Arancibia, "clave" en la cooperación de las dictaduras, La Jornada, 22 May 2000 (in Spanish)
  11. ^ a b Klasfeld, Adam (March 20, 2015). "Court Won't Help Find Pinochet's Former Goon". Courthouse News Service. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
  12. ^ a b c The Assassin, The Washington Post.
  13. ^ Kornbluh, Peter. The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. p. 326, New York: The New Press, 2003.
  14. ^ O’Shaughnessy, Hugh. Pinochet: The Politics of Torture. p. 87, New York: New York University Press, 2000.
  15. ^ Declassified documents, 2, 3 published by the National Security Archive
  16. ^ a b c Contreras dice que Pinochet dio orden "personal, exclusiva y directa" de asesinar a Prats y Letelier 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine, La Tercera, May 13, 2005, mirrored on CC.TT. website (in Spanish)
  17. ^ Declassified documents, 2, 6 published by the National Security Archive
  18. ^ Declassified documents, 2, 7 and 2,8, published by the National Security Archive
  19. ^ Freudenheim, Milt and Roberts, Katherine "Chilean Admits Role in '76 Murder", The New York Times, February 8, 1987. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
  20. ^ Posada and his accomplices, active collaborators of Pinochet's fascist police 2006-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, Granma, 26 March 2003
  21. ^ United States v. Sampol, 636 F.2d 621 (D.C. Cir. 1980).
  22. ^ "Chile Expelling an American Wanted by U.S. in Assassination Case". New York Times. April 8, 1978. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  23. ^ DeYoung, Karen; Dinges, John (April 9, 2023). "Chile Sends Suspect in Letelier Case to U.S." Washington Post. Retrieved December 23, 2023.
  24. ^ Good, Aaron (2022). American Exception. New York: Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 236–237. ISBN 978-1510769137. During his trial, Contreras testified that Walters had declared Letelier a threat to the US. Further, Contreras testified that DINA assassin Michael Townley received CIA support for the car bombing operation that killed Letelier and Moffitt.
  25. ^ El coronel que le pena al ejército 2007-03-12 at the Wayback Machine, La Nación, September 24, 2005 (in Spanish)
  26. ^ "Chile can seek extradition of agents wanted in 1976 US attack, court rules". TheGuardian.com. 6 December 2016.
  27. ^ Bustamante, Paula (25 January 2023). "Chile Court Overturns Murder Verdict In Ex-president Frei's Death". Barron's. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  28. ^ Albert Vallejo, Chile indemniza a la familia de Soria 26 años después de su asesinato, El Mundo, 24 December 2002 (in Spanish)
  29. ^ Jorge Molina Sanhueza, El último secreto del crimen de Soria abre la puerta para condenar a brigadier (R) Lepe Archived 2012-06-30 at archive.today, La Nación, 21 August 2006 (in Spanish)
  30. ^ , Radio Cooperativa, 18 July 2007 (in Spanish)
  31. ^ "GONZALEZ-VERA v. Townley, 595 F.3d 379, 389 U.S. App. D.C. 222 – CourtListener.com". CourtListener. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  32. ^ Chile can seek extradition of agents wanted in 1976 US attack, court rules. The Guardian, December 6, 2016.
  33. ^ "Chile asks U.S. To extradite suspects in 1976 murder of diplomat". Reuters. May 17, 2016.
  34. ^ "ECLAC Welcomes Chilean Supreme Court's Final Conviction in the Murder of Carmelo Soria". ECLAC. 22 August 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
  35. ^ a b "The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified: Confessions of a DINA Hit Man". National Security Archive. November 22, 2023. Retrieved November 24, 2023.
  36. ^ a b c Townley, Michael (November 25, 2023). "Townley Papers, "Relato de Sucesos en la Muerte de Orlando Letelier el 21 de Septiembre, 1976 [Report of Events in the Death of Orlando Letelier, September 21, 1976]," March 14, 1976". National Security Archive.
  37. ^ , Washington Post, November 8, 2013.
  38. ^ País, Ediciones El (2015-11-06). "Chile believes it "highly likely" that poet Neruda was murdered in 1973", elpais.com. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  39. ^ "Pablo Neruda: Experts say official cause of death 'does not reflect reality'". TheGuardian.com. October 23, 2017.
  40. ^ "Tests find no proof Pablo Neruda was poisoned; some still skeptical". CNN. November 13, 2013.
  41. ^ "Poet Pablo Neruda Was Not Poisoned, Officials in Chile Say". NPR. November 8, 2013.
  42. ^ Richards, Ben (February 23, 2003). "The Underside of the Dump". The Guardian. London. Retrieved February 9, 2022.

External links edit

  • National Security Archives - CIA declassified documents

January 01, 1970
michael, townley, australian, politician, politician, grand, theft, auto, character, michael, santa, michael, vernon, townley, born, december, 1942, waterloo, iowa, american, born, former, agent, dirección, inteligencia, nacional, dina, secret, police, chile, . For the Australian politician see Michael Townley politician For the Grand Theft Auto V character see Michael De Santa Michael Vernon Townley born December 5 1942 in Waterloo Iowa is an American born former agent of the Direccion de Inteligencia Nacional DINA the secret police of Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet 1 In 1978 Townley pleaded guilty to the 1976 murders of Orlando Letelier former Chilean ambassador to the United States and Ronni Karpen Moffitt Letelier s co worker at the Institute for Policy Studies He was sentenced to ten years in prison serving 62 months 2 As part of his plea bargain Townley received immunity from further prosecution he was not extradited to Argentina to stand trial for the 1974 assassination of Chilean General Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires 2 Michael TownleyBornMichael Vernon Townley 1942 12 05 December 5 1942 age 81 Waterloo IowaNationality United States ChileOccupationAssassinOrganizationDireccion de Inteligencia NacionalSpouseMariana CallejasConviction s Assassination of Orlando LetelierAttempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton in absentia In 1993 Townley was also convicted in absentia by an Italian court of carrying out the 1975 Rome murder attempt on Bernardo Leighton 3 Townley worked in producing chemical weapons for DINA which would be used against Pinochet regime political opponents 4 5 6 7 along with Colonel Gerardo Huber 8 and the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berrios 9 He has long maintained status as a protected witness 10 11 3 Contents 1 Early life 2 1974 assassination of Carlos Prats 3 1975 Bernardo Leighton assassination attempt 4 Convicted for Orlando Letelier s murder 5 Investigations 5 1 2023 confessions publication 5 2 Alleged role in Pablo Neruda s death 6 In Literature 7 References 8 External linksEarly life editIn 1957 Townley moved to Chile with his father Vernon Townley who became head of the Ford Motor Company in Chile He worked as a salesman of mutual fund stocks In 1967 he moved to Miami with his family and worked as a mechanic in Miami s Little Havana where he became friends with anti Castro exiles 12 In 1970 Townley moved his family back to Chile Townley later testified that before leaving the US he contacted the CIA to offer his services in Chile however Townley said he never worked for the CIA 12 Back in Chile Townley ran a clandestine anti Allende radio station and worked with violent opposition groups He fled Chile in the months before the 1973 coup which overthrew Allende Townley then returned to Chile and was recruited by the DINA 12 1974 assassination of Carlos Prats editMichael Townley was responsible for the assassination of General Carlos Prats who served as a minister in Salvador Allende s government while Commander in chief of the Chilean Army Immediately after the 1973 coup Prats went into exile in Argentina DINA chief Manuel Contreras tasked Townley with the assassination of Prats Townley spent three weeks in Buenos Aires monitoring Prats and planning On September 30 1974 Prats and his wife Sofia were killed outside their apartment in Buenos Aires by a radio controlled car bomb Debris reached the ninth floor balcony of the building across the street 13 14 15 16 In 1983 Townley entered a plea deal which would grant him immunity from prosecution 2 1975 Bernardo Leighton assassination attempt editMain article Attempted assassination of Bernardo Leighton In March 1993 Townley was convicted and sentenced in absentia in Italy to an 18 year prison sentence with two years remission over his role as an intermediary between the DINA and Italian neo fascist terrorist organizations including Avanguardia Nazionale 3 However he was still a member of the United States witness protection 3 at the time of Enrique Arancibia Clavel s arrest in May 2000 for murder of Carlos Prats it was acknowledged that Townley was left as a member of witness protection following the Orlando Letelier case 10 Michael Townley also stated that Arancibia had traveled to California in the autumn of 1977 on banking business for ALFA alias Stefano Delle Chiaie 17 Enrique Arancibia is a former DINA agent who resided in unofficial exile in Buenos Aires after the assassination of Chilean Army Chief of Staff Rene Schneider on October 25 1970 Arancibia was arrested by Argentine intelligence officers shortly after the extradition of Townley to the US and charged with espionage 18 Convicted for Orlando Letelier s murder editThis section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page especially if potentially libelous Find sources Michael Townley news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2023 Learn how and when to remove this message Main article Assassination of Orlando Letelier Townley was convicted in the United States of the 1976 murder of Orlando Letelier in Washington D C During his trial he said that Pinochet was responsible for planning the murder Manuel Contreras head of the DINA also stated that Pinochet planned the assassination of both Prats and Letelier 16 Townley served 62 months in prison for the murder 19 Townley confessed that he had hired five anti Castro Cuban exiles to booby trap Letelier s car According to Jean Guy Allard after consultations with the leadership of the anti Castro Cuban organization Coordinacion de Organizaciones Revolutionarias Unidas CORU including Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch those chosen to carry out the murder were Cuban Americans Jose Dionisio Suarez Virgilio Paz Romero Alvin Ross Diaz and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampol 20 According to the Miami Herald Luis Posada Carriles was also at this meeting which decided on Letelier s death and also about the Cubana Flight 455 bombing Townley was the prosecution s chief witness at the trial for Ross and the Novo brothers 21 In April 1978 Chile agreed to extradite Townley to the United States in order to reduce the tension resulting from Orlando Letelier s murder However his departure from Chile did not undergo a standard extradition process and was regarded as an expulsion 22 In addition Townley also sought protection from Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza 5 He arrived in the United States on April 8 1978 23 He made an agreement with the US government on April 17 1978 which required that he only provide information relevant to violations of US law or offenses committed in US jurisdiction Based on that argument he refused to provide any information concerning DINA during the trial of the three Cuban defendants in Washington D C in early 1979 concerning Letelier s assassination Townley was then freed under an unofficial Witness Protection Program The United States is still waiting for Pedro Espinoza Bravo a former Chilean military and DINA operative also involved in the assassination of Letelier to be extradited DINA chief Manuel Contreras died in Santiago in 2015 without having been extradited In an interview with authorities on October 20 1981 Townley declared that Castro opponent Virgilio Paz Romero brought with him a Colt 45 caliber automatic pistol when he visited Chile in the spring of 1976 According to Townley Romero said that the weapon had recently been used in a hit by the Cuban Nationalist Movement and that his purpose in Chile was to use it again Townley then said that Romero had broken the weapon in pieces and scattered the pieces throughout Santiago In 2005 DINA chief Manuel Contreras also told the Chilean judge responsible for trying the case that Townley had been supported for Letelier s assassination by CIA agents as well as the Cuban Nationalist Movement and members of the Venezuela s National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services DISIP for which Luis Posada Carriles worked General Vernon Walters CIA deputy director from 1972 to 1976 informed Pinochet that Letelier represented a threat to the US and was preparing a Chilean government in exile according to Contreras 24 Contreras wrote in the document that the Chilean President disposed in personal exclusive and direct manner of the action of CIA agent Michael Townley against Mr Orlando Letelier Contreras also stated that Chile s National Information Center CNI handed out monthly payments between 1978 and 1990 to the persons who had worked with Townley in Chile all members of Patria y Libertad Mariana Callejas Townley s wife Francisco Oyarzun Gustavo Etchepare and Eugenio Berrios 16 Assassinated in 1992 Berrios worked with drug traffickers and DEA agents 25 In December 2016 a Chilean court ruled that both Townley and former Chilean Major General Armando Fernandez Larios could be tried in Chile for these murders 26 Investigations editThis section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification Please help by adding reliable sources Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page especially if potentially libelous Find sources Michael Townley news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2023 Learn how and when to remove this message In 2003 Argentine Federal Judge Maria Servini de Cubria asked Chile for the extradition of Townley s wife Mariana Callejas who was accused of involvement in Carlos Prats murder But in July 2005 Chilean judge Nibaldo Segura of the Court of Appeals stated that the case cannot proceed arguing that Callejas was already being tried in Chile Questioned in March 2005 by Judge Alejandro Madrid about former Chilean Christian Democrat President Eduardo Frei Montalva s death Michael Townley acknowledged links between Colonia Dignidad led by Paul Schafer and DINA on one side and the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriologica del Ejercito Bacteriological Warfare Laboratory of the Army on the other It is suspected the toxin that supposedly killed Frei Montalva in a Santa Maria clinic in 1982 was created there This new laboratory in Colonia Dignidad would have been according to him the continuation of the laboratory the DINA had in Via Naranja de lo Curro where he worked with DINA biochemist Eugenio Berrios despite this claim Townley previous acknowledged that the laboratory where he based his production of toxins was located in the basement of his home 7 Townley would also have testified on biological experiments made upon prisoners in Colonia Dignidad with the help of the two above mentioned laboratories 9 However the allegation that Montalva was a murder victim was later dismissed in Chilean court 27 In 1992 Townley testified that the Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria assassinated in 1976 had been detained at his home on Via Naranja in the sector of Lo Curro 28 There he was tortured and since he did not speak subjected to sarin which had been made by Berrios dubious discuss 29 Soria was then detained and tortured again in the Villa Grimaldi and his case was included in Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzon s indictment of Pinochet 30 In May 2016 Chile s Supreme Court asked the United States to extradite Chilean Armando Fernandez Larios Townley and Cuban Virgilio Paz all three of whom were linked to the September 21 1976 car bombing murders in Washington D C In November 2002 Soria s widow Laura Gonzalez Vera along with the personal representative of Soria s estate sued Townley seeking damages for Soria s torture and killing When Townley defaulted the district court entered a 7 million judgment against him 31 The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the foreign ministry of Chile should file an extradition request to the United States for Michael Townley and Armando Fernandez Larios 32 In May 2016 the Supreme Court of Chile asked for the extradition of Townley Virgilio and Armando Fernandez Larios for their alleged roles in the murder of Soria in 1976 33 As of 2015 update Townley remained in the U S Witness Protection Program and his whereabouts were unknown 11 In August 2023 however it was reported that a recent conviction which was given to six former DINA agents and two former army officers would be the final conviction issued by the Supreme Court of Chile for Soria s murder 34 2023 confessions publication edit On November 22 2023 Townley s confessions about his four year career as a DINA assassin were reproduced in full and published together for the first time by the National Security Archive 35 Despite this the National Security Archive s website also acknowledged that Over the years references to Townley s confession have appeared in books and articles as researchers and reporters gained access to Chile s judicial files 35 In his first confession letter dated March 13 1978 Townley described himself as talking part in numerous missions on behalf of DINA and following orders from Gen Contreras 4 In another confession dated March 14 1978 Townley detailed how he was recruited by DINA officials in 1974 and how he served DINA s lead international assassin 7 He would be given a mansion in the upper class Lo Curro neighborhood of Santiago be instructed to build a chemical warfare laboratory in his basement and get appointed to lead a special DINA unit called the Agrupacion Avispa the Wasp Group which operated under DINA s Mulchen Brigade and was dedicated to elimination of opponents of the Pinochet regime 7 He also confessed to the murders of two Chileans real estate conservator Renato Leon Zenteno 1976 and Army corporal and DINA agent Manuel Leyton 1977 using sarin nerve gas that he manufactured in the chemical laboratory in his home 7 In a U S Department of Justice affidavit dated August 23 1991 U S Justice Department attorney Eric B Marcy noted how the United States obtained the documents from his wife between 1982 and 1990 stating among other things that the confessions were prepared by Townley prior to his expulsion from Chile in order to protect him from the fugitives Manuel Contreras and Pedro Espinoza and to protect his expulsion from Chile 5 The aliases which Townley used while he was a DINA agent included Juan Andres Wilson Hans Peterson Silva Kenneth William Enyart and Pablo Andres Simpon Valle 6 In a letter from March 14 1976 Townley noted how he received the order to assassinate Orlando Letelier from Pedro Espinoza 36 When updating the letter after the assassination of Letelier was carried out on September 21 1976 Townley noted how he recruited the team of American based Cuban exiles after traveling to the United States after obtained phony visas in Paraguay 36 Townley also claimed he received assistance from a network of individual Southern Cone secret polices known as Red Condor 36 Alleged role in Pablo Neruda s death edit In 2011 an investigation was launched into the death of Pablo Neruda partially on the strength of a statement from his driver that he was injected with a poison by a Dr Price Price s description matched that of Townley and police examined this link while Neruda s body was exhumed and tested for possible toxins citation needed On November 8 2013 the test results were released with head of Chile s medical legal service Patricio Bustos stating that No relevant chemical substances have been found that could be linked to Mr Neruda s death 37 However Carroza said that he is waiting for the results of the last scientific test conducted in May 2015 which found that Neruda was infected with the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium which can be highly toxic and result in death if modified 38 The Chilean government suggested in 2015 that it was highly probable that a third party was responsible for Neruda s death and a forensics test taken through samples of Neruda s remains in 2017 rejected Neruda s official cause of death which had been listed as prostate cancer 39 However scientists who exhumed Neruda s body in 2013 had backed claims that he was suffering from prostate cancer 40 It was also acknowledged that Neruda s driver was the one who claimed he was poisoned 41 In Literature editIn Roberto Bolano s novel By Night in Chile 2000 the character Jimmy Thompson an American who has been deputized by the Chilean secret police to torture opponents of the regime is based on Michael Townley 42 References edit Summary of Investigation January 21 1982 gwu edu Accessed July 31 2023 a b c Diplomat s Assassin to be Freed Washington Post 1983 07 26 a b c d Willan Philip 11 March 1993 Agent of Chilean secret service convicted of murder attempt UPI a b Townley Michael March 13 1978 Townley Papers Confesion y Acusacion Confession and Accusation March 13 1978 National Security Retrieved November 24 2023 a b c Marcy Eric B August 23 1991 Department of Justice Draft Marcy Letelier Affidavit August 23 1991 Original in English and Spanish translation National Security Archive Retrieved November 25 2023 a b Townley Michael March 14 1976 Townley Papers Declaracion de Personalidades List of Aliases March 14 1976 National Security Archive Retrieved November 25 2023 a b c d e Townley Michael March 14 1978 Townley Papers Historia de Actuacion en DINA History of DINA Activities March 14 1978 U S government transcription and pages 3 6 of original handwritten document National Security Archive Retrieved November 25 2023 Manuel Salazar Salvo Roto el pacto de silencio en la inteligencia militar Archived 2007 09 21 at the Wayback Machine Punto Final n 611 24 March 6 April 2006 in Spanish a b Michael Townley fue interrogado por muerte de Frei Montalva Radio Cooperativa 30 March 2005 in Spanish a b Arancibia clave en la cooperacion de las dictaduras La Jornada 22 May 2000 in Spanish a b Klasfeld Adam March 20 2015 Court Won t Help Find Pinochet s Former Goon Courthouse News Service Retrieved November 13 2021 a b c The Assassin The Washington Post Kornbluh Peter The Pinochet File A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability p 326 New York The New Press 2003 O Shaughnessy Hugh Pinochet The Politics of Torture p 87 New York New York University Press 2000 Declassified documents 2 3 published by the National Security Archive a b c Contreras dice que Pinochet dio orden personal exclusiva y directa de asesinar a Prats y Letelier Archived 2007 09 27 at the Wayback Machine La Tercera May 13 2005 mirrored on CC TT website in Spanish Declassified documents 2 6 published by the National Security Archive Declassified documents 2 7 and 2 8 published by the National Security Archive Freudenheim Milt and Roberts Katherine Chilean Admits Role in 76 Murder The New York Times February 8 1987 Retrieved 2011 09 20 Posada and his accomplices active collaborators of Pinochet s fascist police Archived 2006 06 12 at the Wayback Machine Granma 26 March 2003 United States v Sampol 636 F 2d 621 D C Cir 1980 Chile Expelling an American Wanted by U S in Assassination Case New York Times April 8 1978 Retrieved November 25 2023 DeYoung Karen Dinges John April 9 2023 Chile Sends Suspect in Letelier Case to U S Washington Post Retrieved December 23 2023 Good Aaron 2022 American Exception New York Skyhorse Publishing pp 236 237 ISBN 978 1510769137 During his trial Contreras testified that Walters had declared Letelier a threat to the US Further Contreras testified that DINA assassin Michael Townley received CIA support for the car bombing operation that killed Letelier and Moffitt El coronel que le pena al ejercito Archived 2007 03 12 at the Wayback Machine La Nacion September 24 2005 in Spanish Chile can seek extradition of agents wanted in 1976 US attack court rules TheGuardian com 6 December 2016 Bustamante Paula 25 January 2023 Chile Court Overturns Murder Verdict In Ex president Frei s Death Barron s Retrieved 15 November 2023 Albert Vallejo Chile indemniza a la familia de Soria 26 anos despues de su asesinato El Mundo 24 December 2002 in Spanish Jorge Molina Sanhueza El ultimo secreto del crimen de Soria abre la puerta para condenar a brigadier R Lepe Archived 2012 06 30 at archive today La Nacion 21 August 2006 in Spanish Senado aprobo indemnizacion para familia de Carmelo Soria Radio Cooperativa 18 July 2007 in Spanish GONZALEZ VERA v Townley 595 F 3d 379 389 U S App D C 222 CourtListener com CourtListener Retrieved 2023 01 18 Chile can seek extradition of agents wanted in 1976 US attack court rules The Guardian December 6 2016 Chile asks U S To extradite suspects in 1976 murder of diplomat Reuters May 17 2016 ECLAC Welcomes Chilean Supreme Court s Final Conviction in the Murder of Carmelo Soria ECLAC 22 August 2023 Retrieved 15 November 2023 a b The Pinochet Dictatorship Declassified Confessions of a DINA Hit Man National Security Archive November 22 2023 Retrieved November 24 2023 a b c Townley Michael November 25 2023 Townley Papers Relato de Sucesos en la Muerte de Orlando Letelier el 21 de Septiembre 1976 Report of Events in the Death of Orlando Letelier September 21 1976 March 14 1976 National Security Archive Forensic tests show no poison in remains of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda Washington Post November 8 2013 Pais Ediciones El 2015 11 06 Chile believes it highly likely that poet Neruda was murdered in 1973 elpais com Retrieved 2015 11 06 Pablo Neruda Experts say official cause of death does not reflect reality TheGuardian com October 23 2017 Tests find no proof Pablo Neruda was poisoned some still skeptical CNN November 13 2013 Poet Pablo Neruda Was Not Poisoned Officials in Chile Say NPR November 8 2013 Richards Ben February 23 2003 The Underside of the Dump The Guardian London Retrieved February 9 2022 External links editNational Security Archives CIA declassified documents Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Michael Townley amp oldid 1219210875, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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