New Evidence Surfaces in ’73 Killing of American in Chile
By LARRY ROHTER
SANTIAGO, Chile, March 11 — More than 30 years after an American
writer and filmmaker was kidnapped by Chilean security forces and killed
here, signs of progress in resolving the case, on which the Academy
Award-winning movie "Missing" is based, are finally beginning to appear.
Thanks to the efforts of a judge newly assigned to the case,
evidence has been unearthed pointing to the involvement of high-ranking
military and intelligence officials in the death of Charles Horman, who
disappeared shortly after the American-instigated military coup that
toppled President Salvador Allende on Sept. 11, 1973. A former
intelligence agent has already been indicted, and lawyers representing
Mr. Horman's widow say they expect other arrests.
Chilean law establishes a prosecutorial role for judges and allows
individuals to file criminal suits. Joyce Horman acted in December 2000,
after judges here revoked the immunity of Gen. Augusto Pinochet,
Chile's dictator from 1973 to 1990. Other courts declared General
Pinochet unfit to stand trial in 2002, but the investigation of Mr.
Horman's killing was permitted to continue.
In December, Judge Jorge Zepeda Arancibia, who took over the case
early last year, ordered the arrest of Rafael González Verdugo, a
retired military intelligence agent. Mr. González Verdugo has admitted
to having been present during an interrogation of Mr. Horman and to
having helped recover his body later from a cemetery wall. He has been
charged as an accomplice to the killing and was released on bail last
month.
Over the years, Mr. González Verdugo has claimed in sworn
affidavits that a Central Intelligence Agency operative was present at
the interrogation, an assertion that was incorporated into the film and
led to Congressional hearings and calls for reforms of the C.I.A. But
now that he is facing charges, Mr. González Verdugo has changed his
story, saying he lied in the 1970's to gain political asylum and flee
Chile.
"González Verdugo has recently made a series of statements that are
not only unfounded but can be shown to be such," said Fabiola Letelier,
one of Mrs. Horman's lawyers and sister of Orlando Letelier, the
pre-Pinochet Chilean defense minister assassinated in a car bombing in
Washington in 1976. "He was a key intelligence operative in the days
following the coup, but would now like people to think he was a saint
who did nothing."
Judge Zepeda, who through a spokesman declined a request for an
interview, has placed confidentiality restrictions on information that
is contained in case files, so lawyers are limited in what they can
discuss. But they report what they call significant progress in several
areas of the investigation.
"When we asked initially, we were told `there is nothing left' " in
the way of official files and records, said Sergio Corvalán, another of
the lawyers who represents the Horman family. "But relevant documents
from the period have been located in the Ministries of Foreign
Relations, Defense, Interior and Health, documents that mention Charles
Horman by name and relate to internal investigations of his death." Mr.
Corvalán said there "is a good possibility" that other former Chilean
government officials would be detained and that those indicted would
probably outrank Mr. González Verdugo.
Gen. Augusto Lutz, General Pinochet's first chief of military
intelligence, died at a hospital in 1974 of an "accidental" injection
that is now widely believed to have been deliberate. But Gen. Herman
Brady, military commander of Santiago at the time of the coup, and Gen.
Sergio Arellano Stark, General Pinochet's right-hand man in the army,
are still alive and have been mentioned in local press accounts as
possible suspects. "Besides these, there are other generals," Mr.
Corvalán said. "There was a plot."
Some of the new material also appears to cast doubts on the United
States government's longstanding version of events. Mr. Horman was
abducted from his house on Sept. 17, nearly a week after the coup, and
was last seen at the National Stadium, where scores of Chilean and
foreign political prisoners were held.
"U.S. officials were saying that Charles was killed so fast after
he was picked up that there was no opportunity to protect him," Mrs.
Horman said in a telephone interview from New York City. "But that just
doesn't seem to hold up. He was probably killed on the 20th or 21st, so
there was time and they didn't move on it."
Documents recently declassified as a result of efforts by the
National Security Archive in Washington have also strengthened Mrs.
Horman's conviction that the American Embassy here was both involved in
her husband's death and failed to prevent it. In 1976, for instance,
three State Department officials wrote a cable to the assistant
secretary of state for inter-American affairs accepting a degree of
responsibility for Mr. Horman's execution.
"U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part in Horman's
death," the report acknowledges. "At best, it was limited to providing
or confirming information that helped motivate his murder by the
government of Chile."
As part of the investigation, lawyers for the Horman family also
asked that Henry A. Kissinger, secretary of state at the time of the
coup, be questioned in the United States. The Chilean Supreme Court
filed such a request along with a detailed questionnaire, but did not
receive answers to all of its questions, with the State Department
citing secrecy provisions and the principle of sovereign immunity for
official actions.
