Court Told Letelier Spoke of 'Enemies' by Kenneth Bredemeier
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Court Told Letelier Spoke of 'Enemies' By Kenneth Bredemeier to Letelier at the Institute for Policy the exiles left Venezuela and provide noted that the government's testi- WoablnrtOn Poet Staff Writer Studies, a left-wing think tank here, their airline flight numbers. mony did not relate to Igna0o Novo, Michael Moffitt, the lane survivor gave .his testimony about the threats But Vasquez said the Venezuelans only to Gillermo Novo and the third of the 1976 car bombing assassination against Letelier in response to ques- refused to give the Chileans the infor- defendant on trial, AlvitfRoss here that killed former Chilean am- tions from a defense lawyer for one of mation because his government "was Parker also made an effort yester- bassador Orlando Letelier, testified three staunchly anti-Castro Cuban ex- not in agreement with the Chilean re- day to limit the amount of testimony yesterday that Letelier had told him iles on trial in connection with the gime." Contreras has been indicted in depicting the blood and' gore 'aasod- that he had "many enemies, especially slaying of Letelier and Ronal Moffitt. the slayings of Letelier and Moffitt. • ated with the slayings. After the' gov- The Chilean government" of military But Moffitt's statements tended to He and two other DINA agents are be ernment presented Moffitt's testi- dictator Augusto Pinochet. buttress the government's contention Ing held in Santiago while the Chilean mony, along with that of a-policeman Moffitt, who escaped with minor in- that the killing of Letelier, an arched- Supreme Court decides whether to ex- . who was called tothe site Of the explo- juries from the blast that also killed tic of the Pinochet regime, was or- tradite them-to the United States to sion on Sheridan Circle; two pass- his wife, Ronni, told a U.S. District dered by the Chilean secret police stand trial. - . ersby and the medical examiners who Court jury that when the Pinochet re- then known as DINA. Vasquez also testified that • he met performed the autopsies on Letelier gime decided in 1974 to release Lete- Later in the day, the jury of seven with Guillermo. Nova Sampol, one of and Ronni Moffitt, Parker ruled there, Ler after a year in prison on an icy women and five men heard Rivas Vas- the Cubans on trial on the Letelier- would be no more testimony deserib- Island near Antarctica, a Chilean offi- quez, deputy director of the Venezue- Moffitt murder charges, and two other • ing the scene or the bodies. Th& golf cer warned him about his future activ- lan intelligence service, testify that Cuban exiles In 1974 as they passed ernment then proceeded to di/ to ities. DINA officials came to Caracas in Au- through Venezuela en route to Chile, - "Gen. Pinochet will not and does gust 1975 to seek information about But when Vasquez was asked by. As-. show a motive 'for Leteller's killing, not tolerate activities against his gov- Chilean exiles living there who had sistant U.S. Attorney Eugene M. Prop- his importance in exile activities ernment," the officer told Letelier, ac- served the ousted government of per to Identify Novo in the courtroom, against the Pinochet regime. , - Marxist president Salvador Allende. cording . to Moffitt, who added that the intelligence official picked out Sen. George McGovern W.E),) tes- Letelier "considered that a threat." Letelier, who held several positions in Novo's 'brother, Ignacio Novo Sampol,, tified that Letelier "sensitized" him to Moffitt said that the night before the Allende regime, himself lived who is charged with lying to a grand Letelier was slain on Sept. 21, 1978, as briefly in Venezuela after leaving jury investigating the Letelier slaying, , the issue of alleged human rights %do- he drove along Washington's Embassy Chile in 1974, but not with the killings or the alleged . lations In Chile and made him "more Row, the former diplomat also men- Vasquez said that the DINA offi- conspiracy that led to them. inclined" to support 1916 legislation Judge Barrington D. Parker point- tioned a threat on his life that an in. cials, led by the agency's director, curbing U.S. economic aid to Chile un- forment inside the Chilean Embassy Juan Manuel Contreras Sepulveda, edly told tbe jury after , Vasquez's tes- here had recieved in a letter. asked that Venezuelan officials in- timony about the wrong identification til the Pinochet regime impioved its The 27-year-old Moffitt, an assistant form the Chileans whenever any of and two other times during the day' human rights record. .