Overdue Decision on State Terrorism : Chile court finally acts on a brazen U.S. killing

Justice delayed may be justice denied. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court of Chile on Tuesday brought a tardy but reasonably satisfying conclusion to what was perhaps the most brazen act of state-sponsored terrorism ever committed on American soil. The court upheld jail terms for two top Chilean military officers convicted of ordering the murder of a prominent Chileanleftist and an associate on the streets of Washington nearly 20 years ago.

The crime was unspeakable in its brutality and arrogant in its conception. The victims were Orlando Letelier, foreign minister under the former Marxist president, Salvador Allende, and Letelier’s American aide, Ronni Moffitt. As they drove to work during rush hour on a muggy morning in September, 1976, a powerful bomb exploded under their car on Massachusetts Avenue, only about a mile from the White House. The blast beheaded Moffitt.

Extensive investigations traced the act to the notorious DINA--Chilean secret police working for the junta government of Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew Allende in a bloody coup in 1973. Allende died in that coup, while Letelier was exiled. Now leaders of a newly democratic Chile are trying to achieve a measure of justice in this case, although thousands of other murders and disappearances committed by the military regime will go unpunished. Pinochet, leader of the ruling junta for 16 1/2 years, still commands the armed forces at age 79.

Under pressure from the United States, a Chilean judge in 1993 sentenced a retired army general, Manuel Contreras, and his chief of operations, Brig. Pedro Espinoza, to jail terms of seven and six years, respectively, for ordering the Washington murders. Chile’s Supreme Court, from which no further appeal is possible, upheld the sentences Tuesday amid considerable fears over what might be themilitary’s reaction.

Contreras still denies culpability, and is holed up on his ranch in Southern Chile vowing to stay out of jail. In our view, his seven-year jail term seems extraordinarily light for such a beastly crime. The Chilean Supreme Court refused to extradite him to the United States on the ground that he was implicated here under a plea bargain with an American thug, Michael Townley, hired to do the dirty work of actually planting the bomb, and such evidence is inadmissible under Chilean law.

If Contreras is unhappy with the quality of Chilean justice and its penal system, let him voluntarily come to this country to defend himself before a jury of the citizens of Washington, whose streets were stained with the blood of his fellow countryman.