Enrique Arancibia Clavel (13 October 1944 – 28 April 2011) was a Chilean DINA security service agent who assassinated General

Carlos Prats Carlos Prats González (; February 24, 1915 – September 30, 1974) was a Chilean Army officer and politician. He served as a minister in Salvador Allende's government while Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. Immediately after General August ...

and his wife in 1974. General Prats, who had been commander-in-chief of the armed forces during the administration of

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...

, had strongly criticized Pinochet's 1973 coup which deposed Allende; Prats went into voluntary exile in Argentina. Aranciba was working for the government of

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

. He was convicted of the assassinations in Argentina. After serving 20 years in prison, Aranciba was paroled in July 2007. He was found stabbed to death in his apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina in April 2011.

Background

Arancibia was associated with the right-wing group that killed Chilean Army Chief of Staff René Schneider in 1970 during a botched kidnapping. General Schneider had supported Allende's election by writing the

Schneider Doctrine The Schneider Doctrine was a political doctrine originally espoused by Chilean General René Schneider, which allowed the election of Salvador Allende as President of Chile, and was the main ideological obstacle to a military coup d'état against ...

, which advocated an apolitical military. Aranciba was not directly linked with Schneider's death. After Schneider's murder, Arancibia left Chile and took up residence in unofficial exile in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. In Argentina, Arancibia acted as a liaison between DINA and the Argentine secret police. He became involved in the assassination of Prats and his wife, who went into exile in Argentina following Pinochet's coup. The assassination was part of

Operation Condor Operation Condor ( es, link=no, Operación Cóndor, also known as ''Plan Cóndor''; pt, Operação Condor) was a United States–backed campaign of political repression and state terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of op ...

, a campaign of political repression and terror involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America against left-wing rivals. Arancibia received assistance from

Michael Townley 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. In 1978, Townley pled guilty t ...

in planning and carrying out the attack, which reportedly also involved Italian terrorist

Stefano Delle Chiaie Stefano Delle Chiaie (13 September 1936, Caserta – 10 September 2019, Rome) was an Italian neo-fascist terrorist. He was the founder of ''Avanguardia Nazionale'', a member of '' Ordine Nuovo'', and founder of Lega nazionalpopolare. He went on ...

. The Italian ultimately testified against both Townley and Arancibia. In 1978, shortly after the extradition of Townley to the United States for the murder of diplomat Orland Letelier in Washington, DC in 1976, Arancibia was arrested by Argentine intelligence officers and charged with

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

. He was convicted and sentenced to life for the 1974 assassination of General Prats in Buenos Aires; this sentence was upheld in an Argentine court in August 2004, the court thereby ruling that crimes against humanity do not have a statutory limit in Argentina, including those committed during the

Dirty War The Dirty War ( es, Guerra sucia) is the name used by the military junta or civic-military dictatorship of Argentina ( es, dictadura cívico-militar de Argentina, links=no) for the period of state terrorism in Argentina from 1974 to 1983 as ...

. Townley was also involved in General Prats' assassination, but never tried for the crime. (Townley served 62 months of a 10-year sentence for his role in the assassination of

Orlando Letelier Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (13 April 1932 – 21 September 1976) was a Chilean economist, politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A refugee from the Military government of Chile (1973–1990), military dictato ...

, Chilean Ambassador to the US, who was killed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Townley's plea bargain for confessing to the Letelier assassination provided immunity from further prosecution, preventing his extradition to Argentina on charges relating to the Prats' assassination). In addition, Arancibia was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in 2004 by an Argentine court for the kidnapping of Laura Elgueta and another Chilean woman in Buenos Aires. Elgueta was later charged with relaying communications for the ex–

Minister of Defence A defence minister or minister of defence is a cabinet official position in charge of a ministry of defense, which regulates the armed forces in sovereign states. The role of a defence minister varies considerably from country to country; in som ...

Vivianne Blanlot. Although the Prats case was still open in Chile, Arancibia was freed under

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

for technical reason in July 2007, after nearly 20 years of prison in Argentina. Aranciba was found dead in Buenos Aires in April 2011. It was revealed posthumously that he was gay.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arancibia Clavel, Enrique 1944 births 2011 deaths Chilean anti-communists Chilean assassins Chilean kidnappers Chilean people convicted of crimes against humanity Chilean people imprisoned abroad Chilean people murdered abroad Chilean prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Deaths by stabbing in Argentina Gay men People murdered in Argentina People of the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional People paroled from life sentence Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Argentina People convicted of kidnapping Chilean LGBT people

Background

See also

References