Gerardo Huber
Encyclopedia
Gerardo Huber Olivares was a Chilean Army
Colonel and agent of the DINA, Chile's
intelligence agency. He was in charge of purchasing weapons abroad for the army. Huber was assassinated
shortly before he was due to testify
before Magistrate Hernán Correa de la Cerda in a case concerning the illegal export of weapons to the Croatian army. That enterprise involved 370 tons of weapons sold to the Croatia
n government by Chile on 7 December 1991, when Croatia was under a United Nations
embargo
arising from the war in Yugoslavia
. In January 1992, Magistrate
Correa sought testimony from Huber on the deal. However, Huber may well have been silenced to avoid implicating former Chilean President
and then-Commander-in-Chief
of the Army Augusto Pinochet
, who was himself awaiting trial
on related charges.
to infiltrate
groups supporting the Chilean MIR faction in its struggle against Pinochet's dictatorship
. When he returned to Chile, he worked with American-born DINA agent Michael Townley
in producing chemical weapons, which were used against political dissidents.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Huber was sent to the military chemical installation in Talagante
. He served as governor of Talagante Province
from 1987 to 1989. Colonel Huber was nominated in March 1991 to the Army's Directorate of Logistics
, where he was tasked with the buying and selling of weapons abroad. According to his widow, he met with Pinochet
in May 1991 to inform him of various irregularities occurring in the logistics service of the Army. Huber's widow alleges that Pinochet's reaction was to send him to a military hospital
so he could see a psychiatrist
.
ahead of a Serbian offensive to capture Sarajevo
, the Bosnian capital. However, the UN had imposed an arms embargo
on the region to try to quell the fighting, and Croatia was thus hampered in its efforts to secure weapons and ordnance.
On 19 November 1991, Marziale closed the deal with General Guillermo Letelier Skinner, a close associate of Pinochet's and head of the Chilean Famae
(Fábricas y Maestranzas del Ejército, Factories and Arsenals of the Army of Chile), the quasi-military firm in charge of producing the weapons. The agreement was worth more than US$6 million; the weaponry purchased included 370 tons of weaponry, including SG-542 firearms, Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles
, Mamba anti-tank missiles
, rockets, grenades, mortars
, and loads of 7.62mm ammunition).
The illegal arms deal was revealed in December 1991, when the weapons, disguised as "humanitarian aid
" from a Chilean military hospital, were discovered in Budapest
. On 7 December 1991, a Hungarian newspaper published the scoop, and on 2 January 1992, General Letelier was forced to resign. Two days later, at the request of Minister of Defence Patricio Rojas, the Chilean Supreme Court nominated Magistrate de la Cerda to investigate the arms deal. The magistrate called Gerardo Huber as a witness; Huber declared that he had been following orders from General Krumm, the logistics chief. On 29 January 1992, Huber, who was vacationing in San Alfonso, Cajón del Maipo
, "disappeared
". His body was found on 20 February 1992, with the skull shattered.
. In 1996, Magistrate María Soledad Espina, in charge of investigations concerning Huber's case, categorically excluded the possibility of suicide. Despite this, the case remained dormant until Magistrate Claudio Pavez took over the case in September 2005; he subsequently found the death of Huber to be a homicide
. Pavez has since accused the civilian police of obstruction of justice
in relation to the investigation.
On 7 March 2006, Magistrate Pavez indicted
five retired high-ranking military officers on charges of conspiracy to cover up
Huber's assassination. They included General Eugenio Covarrubias, head of the Dirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE, or the Military Intelligence Directorate, DINA's successor) in 1992; General Víctor Lizárraga, then Deputy-Director of DINE; General Krumm; Brigadier
Manuel Provis Carrasco, then head of the Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército (BIE, or the Military Intelligence Agency); and Captain Julio Muñoz, a friend of Huber and former member of the BIE.
General Krumm testified to Magistrate Pavez that the arms deal had been directly approved by President Pinochet. Following statements made by Captain Pedro Araya
, Krumm confirmed a meeting was held prior to the deal. According to Araya, Richard Quass, director of Operations of the Army; General Florienco Tejos, chief of War Materiel
; General Jaime Concha, Commandant of Military Institutions; General Guido Riquelme, Chief Commandant of the 2nd Army Division; General Guillermo Skinner; and General Krumm all attended the meeting.
Captain Araya, who had been sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the arms deal, turned state's evidence
in 2005 and declared that he had acted under orders from the military hierarchy. He also stated that Pinochet "had full knowledge of this sale, since he was in close communication with the director of Famae and made available on the army's part the arms that were sold by Famae." Further, official documents state that money from the arms deal was funneled into Pinochet's personal bank accounts abroad. Evidence presented suggested that Famae head General Letelier may have been complicit in laundering the funds.
Another witness and defendant in the case, Jorge Molina Sanhueza, testified in March 2006 that on 22 January 1992, shortly before Huber's assassination, he had a private meeting with Pinochet upon returning from a trip to Israel
. General Lizárraga, the number two man at DINE, had previously denied this meeting took place. Eventually, both General Lizárraga and General Covarrubias admitted to the magistrate that Pinochet personally headed the BIE, which the former dictator declared his nescience of.
According to Pavez' investigations, between his "disappearance" and the discovery of his corpse, Colonel Huber had been detained in a secret military installation operated by Chilean intelligence. Pavez has suggested that Huber had been kidnapped by BIE agents and transferred to a secret detention center of the Escuela de Inteligencia del Ejército (EIE, School of Army Intelligence) in Nos, which was also the location of the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Army Laboratory). The laboratory was headed in 1992 by General Covarrubias. Along with Manuel Provis, one of the main suspects in the Huber assassination, Covarrubias also allegedly detained DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos
in September 1991 before sending him to Argentina
and then Uruguay
. Covarrubias was also indicted for the kidnapping and murder of Berríos, who was killed in Uruguay in 1995.
, involving the DINA biochemist found dead in Uruguay, has been linked by investigating magistrates to the Huber case. In both cases, the DINE was involved. Like Huber, Berríos probably was seen as knowing too much, as he had been implicated both in the Letelier case
and in production of black cocaine
and sarin gas for Pinochet. Berríos escaped from Chile in 1992, assisted by a Special Unit of the DINE known as Operación Silencio (Operation Silence). Furthermore, Main Cargo, the firm which worked with Famae to export the weapons, was owned by Marianne Cheyre Stevenson, the sister of Juan Carlos Cheyre. Stevenson also owned the restaurant Les Assassins, where Berríos met with drug-dealers
and former DINA agents in the early 1990s. The Cheyres are distant relatives of Juan Emilio Cheyre
, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army from 2002 to 2006.
Chilean Army
The Chilean Army is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 45,000-person army is organized into seven divisions, a special operations brigade and an air brigade....
Colonel and agent of the DINA, Chile's
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
intelligence agency. He was in charge of purchasing weapons abroad for the army. Huber was assassinated
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
shortly before he was due to testify
Testimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter. All testimonies should be well thought out and truthful. It was the custom in Ancient Rome for the men to place their right hand on a Bible when taking an oath...
before Magistrate Hernán Correa de la Cerda in a case concerning the illegal export of weapons to the Croatian army. That enterprise involved 370 tons of weapons sold to the Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n government by Chile on 7 December 1991, when Croatia was under a United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
embargo
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
arising from the war in Yugoslavia
Croatian War of Independence
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia —and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat...
. In January 1992, Magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
Correa sought testimony from Huber on the deal. However, Huber may well have been silenced to avoid implicating former Chilean President
President of Chile
The President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...
and then-Commander-in-Chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
of the Army Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
, who was himself awaiting trial
Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial
General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón on 10 October 1998. He was arrested in London six days later and finally released by the British government in March 2000...
on related charges.
Life
Gerardo Huber graduated from military school in 1964, specializing as an engineer. Ten years later, after Augusto Pinochet's coup in 1973, he began working for the DINA intelligence agency and was sent to ArgentinaArgentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
to infiltrate
Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic by which an organisation or state encourages its members or agents to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely...
groups supporting the Chilean MIR faction in its struggle against Pinochet's dictatorship
Chile under Pinochet
Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet from 1973 when Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'etat until 1990 when the Chilean transition to democracy began. The authoritarian military government was characterized by systematic suppression of political parties and...
. When he returned to Chile, he worked with American-born DINA agent Michael Townley
Michael Townley
Michael Vernon Townley is a US citizen currently living in the United States under terms of the federal witness protection program. A Central Intelligence Agency agent and operative of the Chilean secret police, DINA, Townley confessed, was convicted, and served 62 months in prison in the United...
in producing chemical weapons, which were used against political dissidents.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Huber was sent to the military chemical installation in Talagante
Talagante
Talagante is a commune and the capital city of the province of the same name in the Santiago Metropolitan Region of central Chile. The word Talagante in Quechua comes from talacanta, meaning "Lazo de Hechicero", which was the proper name of the curaca, or ruler, who dominated this central valley on...
. He served as governor of Talagante Province
Talagante Province
Talagante Province is one of six provinces of the Santiago Metropolitan Region in central Chile. The capital is the city of Talagante, located approximately southwest of the national capital of Santiago...
from 1987 to 1989. Colonel Huber was nominated in March 1991 to the Army's Directorate of Logistics
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...
, where he was tasked with the buying and selling of weapons abroad. According to his widow, he met with Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
in May 1991 to inform him of various irregularities occurring in the logistics service of the Army. Huber's widow alleges that Pinochet's reaction was to send him to a military hospital
Military hospital
Military hospital is a hospital, which is generally located on a military base and is reserved for the use of military personnel, their dependents or other authorized users....
so he could see a psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
.
The arms deal and Huber's death
Ives Marziale, representative of Ivi Finance & Management Incorporated, a firm directed by German Gunter Leinthauser, arrived in Chile in October 1991 in hopes of buying second-hand weapons from the Chilean Army to sell to the Croatian Army. At that time, Croatia was preparing for the defense of BosniaBosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
ahead of a Serbian offensive to capture Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, the Bosnian capital. However, the UN had imposed an arms embargo
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
on the region to try to quell the fighting, and Croatia was thus hampered in its efforts to secure weapons and ordnance.
On 19 November 1991, Marziale closed the deal with General Guillermo Letelier Skinner, a close associate of Pinochet's and head of the Chilean Famae
FAMAE
FAMAE is a Chilean government-owned weapons producer. Its products are used by the Chilean armed forces and the police. The company produces among others the FAMAE CT-30 carbine, FAMAE SAF submachine gun, FAMAE FD-200 sniper rifle, Cohete Rayo rocket launcher and FAMAE revolver...
(Fábricas y Maestranzas del Ejército, Factories and Arsenals of the Army of Chile), the quasi-military firm in charge of producing the weapons. The agreement was worth more than US$6 million; the weaponry purchased included 370 tons of weaponry, including SG-542 firearms, Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles
Blowpipe missile
The Shorts Blowpipe is a man-portable surface-to-air missile which was in use with the British Army and Royal Marines from 1975. It was superseded by an interim design, Javelin, and later the greatly improved Starstreak missile.-Description:...
, Mamba anti-tank missiles
Cobra (anti-tank missile)
The Cobra was a Swiss/German anti-tank missile designed by the Oerlikon-Contraves and Bölkow GmbH companies. It entered service with the German Army in the late 1950s...
, rockets, grenades, mortars
Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....
, and loads of 7.62mm ammunition).
The illegal arms deal was revealed in December 1991, when the weapons, disguised as "humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises including natural disaster and man-made disaster. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
" from a Chilean military hospital, were discovered in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
. On 7 December 1991, a Hungarian newspaper published the scoop, and on 2 January 1992, General Letelier was forced to resign. Two days later, at the request of Minister of Defence Patricio Rojas, the Chilean Supreme Court nominated Magistrate de la Cerda to investigate the arms deal. The magistrate called Gerardo Huber as a witness; Huber declared that he had been following orders from General Krumm, the logistics chief. On 29 January 1992, Huber, who was vacationing in San Alfonso, Cajón del Maipo
Cajón del Maipo
Cajón del Maipo is a canyon located in the Andean southeastern portion of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, Chile. It encompasses the upper Maipo River basin, where the river has entrenched itself in a narrow valley...
, "disappeared
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
". His body was found on 20 February 1992, with the skull shattered.
Investigations
Chilean police at first declared Huber's death to be a suicideSuicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. In 1996, Magistrate María Soledad Espina, in charge of investigations concerning Huber's case, categorically excluded the possibility of suicide. Despite this, the case remained dormant until Magistrate Claudio Pavez took over the case in September 2005; he subsequently found the death of Huber to be a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
. Pavez has since accused the civilian police of obstruction of justice
Obstruction of justice
The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of interfering with the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other officials...
in relation to the investigation.
On 7 March 2006, Magistrate Pavez indicted
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
five retired high-ranking military officers on charges of conspiracy to cover up
Cover-up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrong-doing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information...
Huber's assassination. They included General Eugenio Covarrubias, head of the Dirección de Inteligencia del Ejército (DINE, or the Military Intelligence Directorate, DINA's successor) in 1992; General Víctor Lizárraga, then Deputy-Director of DINE; General Krumm; Brigadier
Brigadier
Brigadier is a senior military rank, the meaning of which is somewhat different in different military services. The brigadier rank is generally superior to the rank of colonel, and subordinate to major general....
Manuel Provis Carrasco, then head of the Batallón de Inteligencia del Ejército (BIE, or the Military Intelligence Agency); and Captain Julio Muñoz, a friend of Huber and former member of the BIE.
General Krumm testified to Magistrate Pavez that the arms deal had been directly approved by President Pinochet. Following statements made by Captain Pedro Araya
Pedro Araya
Pedro Araya may refer to:* Pedro Araya Ortiz, Chilean politician* Pedro Araya Guerrero, Chilean politician* Pedro Araya , Chilean footballer...
, Krumm confirmed a meeting was held prior to the deal. According to Araya, Richard Quass, director of Operations of the Army; General Florienco Tejos, chief of War Materiel
Materiel
Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....
; General Jaime Concha, Commandant of Military Institutions; General Guido Riquelme, Chief Commandant of the 2nd Army Division; General Guillermo Skinner; and General Krumm all attended the meeting.
Captain Araya, who had been sentenced to five years in prison for his involvement in the arms deal, turned state's evidence
State's Evidence
State's Evidence is an independent film created in 2004 and released in 2006, directed by Benjamin Louis and starring Douglas Smith, Alexa Vega, Majandra Delfino, Kris Lemche, Cody McMains, and Drew Tyler Bell.-Plot summary:...
in 2005 and declared that he had acted under orders from the military hierarchy. He also stated that Pinochet "had full knowledge of this sale, since he was in close communication with the director of Famae and made available on the army's part the arms that were sold by Famae." Further, official documents state that money from the arms deal was funneled into Pinochet's personal bank accounts abroad. Evidence presented suggested that Famae head General Letelier may have been complicit in laundering the funds.
Another witness and defendant in the case, Jorge Molina Sanhueza, testified in March 2006 that on 22 January 1992, shortly before Huber's assassination, he had a private meeting with Pinochet upon returning from a trip to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. General Lizárraga, the number two man at DINE, had previously denied this meeting took place. Eventually, both General Lizárraga and General Covarrubias admitted to the magistrate that Pinochet personally headed the BIE, which the former dictator declared his nescience of.
According to Pavez' investigations, between his "disappearance" and the discovery of his corpse, Colonel Huber had been detained in a secret military installation operated by Chilean intelligence. Pavez has suggested that Huber had been kidnapped by BIE agents and transferred to a secret detention center of the Escuela de Inteligencia del Ejército (EIE, School of Army Intelligence) in Nos, which was also the location of the Laboratorio de Guerra Bacteriológica del Ejército (Bacteriological Warfare Army Laboratory). The laboratory was headed in 1992 by General Covarrubias. Along with Manuel Provis, one of the main suspects in the Huber assassination, Covarrubias also allegedly detained DINA biochemist Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA intelligence agency.Berríos was charged with carrying outProyecto Andrea in which Pinochet ordered the production of sarin gas, a chemical weapon used by the DINA. Sarin gas leaves no trace and victims' deaths closely mimic...
in September 1991 before sending him to Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and then Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
. Covarrubias was also indicted for the kidnapping and murder of Berríos, who was killed in Uruguay in 1995.
Convictions
Investigations into the murder officially ended in July 2007. Following their trial, on 5 October 2009 a civilian court convicted Generals Lizárraga and Krum and Colonels Provis and Munoz of the murder of Huber. Lizárraga and Provis were also convicted of conspiracy, receiving ten and eight years' imprisonment respectively. Krum was convicted of conspiracy and received 541 days imprisonment. Munoz was sentenced to 600 days in prison for murder. General Covarrubias was found not guilty of all charges. This brought to a close the proceedings against the officers, as well as others; eleven men had already been convicted and sentenced by a military court in June 2009 for their part in the arrangement of the arms deal. The identity of the actual gunman was not disclosed by the court.Berríos and Les Assassins
The Berríos murder caseEugenio Berríos
Eugenio Berríos Sagredo was a Chilean biochemist who worked for the DINA intelligence agency.Berríos was charged with carrying outProyecto Andrea in which Pinochet ordered the production of sarin gas, a chemical weapon used by the DINA. Sarin gas leaves no trace and victims' deaths closely mimic...
, involving the DINA biochemist found dead in Uruguay, has been linked by investigating magistrates to the Huber case. In both cases, the DINE was involved. Like Huber, Berríos probably was seen as knowing too much, as he had been implicated both in the Letelier case
Letelier case
The Letelier case refers to the killing in Washington, D.C. of Orlando Letelier, a Chilean political figure and later United States-based activist, along with his American assistant, Ronni Moffitt...
and in production of black cocaine
Black cocaine
Black cocaine, also known as Coca Negra, is a mixture of regular cocaine base or cocaine hydrochloride with various other substances. These other substances are added* to camouflage the typical appearance Black cocaine, also known as Coca Negra, is a mixture of regular cocaine base or cocaine...
and sarin gas for Pinochet. Berríos escaped from Chile in 1992, assisted by a Special Unit of the DINE known as Operación Silencio (Operation Silence). Furthermore, Main Cargo, the firm which worked with Famae to export the weapons, was owned by Marianne Cheyre Stevenson, the sister of Juan Carlos Cheyre. Stevenson also owned the restaurant Les Assassins, where Berríos met with drug-dealers
Illegal drug trade
The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of those substances which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.A UN report said the...
and former DINA agents in the early 1990s. The Cheyres are distant relatives of Juan Emilio Cheyre
Juan Emilio Cheyre
Juan Emilio Cheyre Espinoza is a retired Chilean Army General. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army from 2002 to 2006...
, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army from 2002 to 2006.
See also
- Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trialAugusto Pinochet's arrest and trialGeneral Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón on 10 October 1998. He was arrested in London six days later and finally released by the British government in March 2000...
- Chilean transition to democracyChilean transition to democracyThe Chilean transition to democracy began when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoration of democracy...
External links
- Chile: Illicit Croatia Arms Sales Case in Final State, The Santiago TimesThe Santiago TimesThe Santiago Times is an English-language newspaper published in Santiago, Chile that reports news in Chile and the other parts of Latin America. It is part of The Chilean Information Project reporting on environmental, social and economic issues within Chile...
, 4 September 2007