Nation IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Guilty Plea in Killing of Chilean Diplomat

A Cuban exile pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder in the 1976 car-bombing of Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier in Washington. Virgilio Paz Romero, alleged to have detonated the bomb that killed Letelier and his aide, Ronni Moffitt, was arrested in April in Florida. He will be sentenced Sept. 5 for one count of conspiracy to murder an internationally protected foreign official. Under a plea bargain, four other charges were dropped and the government said it would seek no more than 12 years in prison. But U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr. could impose up to life in prison. Paz allegedly worked for the Chilean secret police agency DINA, which sought to eliminate Letelier as a leading critic of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military government.