A 30 . a lux. .5ddy , ebriory 15,1979

On All 15 Charges in Bomb Slaying Cuban Exiles Guilty in Letelier Death. 2./ry enneth Bredemeier once known as DINA, had masterminded they Washington Post &aft Writer murder plot. Three anti-Castro Cuban exiles were convicted Relatives and friends of the three defendantet yesterday on all counts in connection with the sobbed as the jury foreman read the guilty Ver.t. 1976 bombing assassination here of former diets. The three defendants, surrounded by six'. U.S. marshals and protected by en additional 16 Chilean Ambassador and a col- marshals in the courtroom, stood stony-faced as league. the verdicts were announced. The U.S. District Court jury of seven women As they were led to the cellblock behind the and five men deliberated for 81/2 hours over the courtroom, Ignacio Novo and Ross raised their last two days and then told Judge Barrington fists and shouted: "Viva Cuba!" D. Parker in a hushed courtroom that it had The outcome of the case was presaged mo- found the defendants— Guillermo Novo Sampol, ments before -the jury returned to the court- his brother, Ignacio Novo Sampol, and Alvin room. Guillermo Novo looked at his friends in Ross Dlaz—guilty on all 15 charges that they the courtroom and said in Spanish, "It's sure faced stemming from the Embassy Row bomb- that they screwed us." ing death. As he made the comment, Novo drew a hand The killing of Letelier, one of the most ardent across h!a throat. critics of the current Chilean military dictator- In rendering the guilty verdict, the jury ac; ship of Gen. , was the most cepted the contention of three youthful federal notorious act of international terrorism ever prosecutors—Eugene M. Propper, E. Lawrence committed here. Indeed, the indictment in the case had alleged that the Chilean secret police, See LETELIER, A30, Col. 1

that overthrew Marxist President LETELIER, 'From 'At Salvador Allende 'in a bloody clip Barcella Jr., and Dianne H. Kelly— in September 1973. that Letelier's slaying was ordered The Pinochet government Im- prisoned Letelier and other Allende by DINA. officials and supportera, without plae The government'S chief witness, bag charges against theta: Eventuitllsr•f! Michael Vernon Townley, a 36-year- Letelier was expelled from .: old American-born DINA agent who After he moved to the United Skates;.... be became the most, vocal critic of refers to the Chilean secret police as Pinochet and the alleged Minton- "my service," had told the jury that rights violations his government-had he recruited the Cubans to help' him committed. in the assassination mission on orders The 44-year-old Leteller was of his DINA superiors. stripped of his citiienship just , days Imrneriately after the verdict, Prop- before he and a colleague at lila .et the Institute for Policy Studies, Nonni per predicted that the decision "shOulti • K. Moffitt, were killed as they . make it easier for us" to win .the ex- rounded Sheraton Circle on their way tradition of former DINA chief -Juan to work. . Sepulveda, DINA Leteller's widow, Isabel, gdt-to die • operations director Pedro - Espinoza courthouse momenta too late yeeter ,' Bravo and DINA agent Artnando"Fer- day to hear the verdict in person. Af-' nandez Larios, all of whom 'are- terward. she said what she hoped Pi- charged with the Letelier slaying. nochet's reaction to the ver4t- would be: "I do hope the tyrant eml, The three former DINA officials are awaiting a decision by the Chilean ble." Supreme Court on whether they must. Mrs. Letelier said that "We Can'feel be extradited to stand trial linlhe V.S. comforted by the verdict, that these, Although only the Novo- brothers kinds of tragedlea will notriutiipen:. and Ross officially were on trial, again if justice is exercised.' the su- preme Court In Chile will have &diffi- many people in Chile and the 'U.S. cult time not finding enough evidence familiar with the case have viewed the ultimate defendant.as the Rover* to extradite .the three army officers." ment of Pinochet, wholed a junta Nonetheless, many U S encLCAlliitut., officials have privately said that' ii2ei . . -

.Z1774M7gttrriti rriniiVMVIM41 tion by defense attorneys, Townley Acting on:orders-of his DINA supe- matter of factly told the jury in an of- riors, Townley said he traveled to ten-packed courtroom of a part of his Mexico in early 1975 in an effort to life as an international terrorist. "eliminate", two Chilean eiriles, but Judge Parker ruled, however, that de- that he and his wife Mariana, another fense lawyers could not ask Townley DINA agent, arrived a day after a about his alleged participation in trips meeting of exiles had ended. to and to kill Chilean By mid-1976, Townley testified, his exiles. DINA superiors had decided to kill A native of Waterloo, Iowa who Leteller, who increasingly had_ become, now calls Chile his homeland, Town- an outspoken critic of theochet in ley testified that although be regrets government for its alleged human the slaying of Moffitt, he has no re- rights violations. morse about killing Leteller. Defense lawyers argued that Town- "He was a soldier, I was a soldier," ley was much more than a DINA Townley said calmly, in much the agent contending that he killed Late- same manner someone might say he lier on orders of the Central Intelli- doesn't care what's for dinner. gence Agency. Neither testimony nor Townley, a self-taught electronics any form of evidence ever supported expe?t who has spent more than 20 the contention, but the defense law- years in Chile, said he started his life yers pointed to Townley's four con- as a terrorist with surreptitious hit. tacts with the CIA in the early 1970s and-run activities against the Allende as a suggestion that the CIA could government, eventually became an in- have been involved in the killing. formant for DINA and later an agent. For the husky, broad-shouldered

Townley, It411ng Leteller weal just an- passenger in the back seat, but area in- other order to carry out. jured only slightly. He said he, initially was thwarted in gaining entry; to' the United States In a final bizarre episode blithe when false Paraguayan passports he trial, the defense unsuccessfully tried had obtained were revoked. But ,in to get Parker to let the jury hear early September 1970, Townley said, about a telephone call Townley made he entered the D.S. under the alias Jan. 30. to a former DINA agent in Hans Peterson Silva and traveled to Chile in which Townley allegedly sug- the -New York City area to recruit gested that their friends call Parker members of the Cuban Nationalist and threaten him to get him to with- -Movement to help him carry out the draw from the case. assassination. The defense otherwise focused its Townley said he assembled the attention on trying to discredit the bomb in a Washington hotel with the testimony of three convicts, _ all of assistance of fugitives Paz and Suarez whom implicated Ross and Guillermo and then drove to Leteller's Bethesda Novo through statements they said home in the early hours of Sept. 19, the defendants made after the assassi- 1976. There, Townley attached what nation. The defense also tried to chip he „antiseptically, called "the device" away at details in the prosecution's to the undercarriage of the former case in an effort aimed at trying to diplomat's Chevelle. create a "reasonable doubt" in the ju- The bomb was detonated by remote rors' minds that the defendatits sere control as Leteller and Moffitt drove guilty since court rules require. the - to work two days later. Moffitt's hus- prosecution to prove a case "heyoiid a band of 31/2 months, Michael, was a reasonable doubt." - on not netteve the three t.;eneattiewttl'.i be extradited, partly because Conte Mit, in three 'assassination attempts ras is a close alley.of PinochetsTwo.. on the ,-life est. Cuban Premier Fidel other Cuban exiles charged 'with the Castro. Letelier and Moffitt slayings, Jose Dio- The Leteller slaying generated ex- - nasio Suarez Esquivel and Viral* - traordinary passions 21/4 years ago Paz Romero still are fugitives despite that still were much in evidence in a worldwide search,- • — and around Parker's sixth-floor court- Guillermo Novo and Ross botig room in the federal courthouse, a mandatory 20-year prison terms short distance from the Capitol. When their conviction Of th-e Townley first appeared in the court- • _ premeditated murder ofte Lea room last month, the Cuban defend- could receive up to a life sentence. ants taunted him with a course of in- Novo and Ross were both convicted of vective in Spanish. Relatives and conspiracy to murder a foreign offi- friends df the defendants and Letelier dal, murder of a foreign official,. stld watched the trial each day. first degree murders of both Letelier • Because of the nature of the case, and Moffitt, and murder bynae ofex4-, plosives. In addition, Novo was con- threats that had been made against - victed of two counts of lying to the the lives of Parker and Propper and ', grand jury that investigated the Lete- the fact that two Cubans still are fugi- lier killing and for failing to tell au- tives in,the case, wary courthouse offi- thorities about the crime after he cials imposed Unprecedented security. learned of it from Townley. 2,. German shepherds trained to sniff for bombs • searched the courthouse daily for explosives, but found none. Visitors to the courtroom had to pass through two magnetometers to get in- Parker set no date for sentencing, side and leave some form of Identifi- but told defense attorneys to make cation with U.S. marshals - — -- --- any post-trial motions by March 5. As It turned out, the only fireworks Parker sent all three Cubans to jail were.iesiclerkthe courtroom and they without bond pending sentencing. were yarbal. 'Prosecutors and defense Defense lawyers Paul Goldberger, attorneys, sparred daily over the ad- missibility of evidence, so much so Lawrence Dubin and Oscar Suarez im- that the jury on several days heard mediately said they would appeal the 4:less than two hours of testimony. verdicts. From virtually the beginning of the 'Accepting Townley is hard for any- testimony on Jan. 15 to the closing ar- one to do," Goldberger said, "but I guments earlier this week, the case guess that's what the jury did." seemed to hinge on Townley's testi- The 22-month investigation that led mony.. to the indictment of the five Cubans Through 31/4 hours_of direct ques- and three Chileans last August was tioning by prosecutor Propper and headed by Propper and a drawling five days of grueling cross-examina- ' FBI agent named L. Carter Cornick. • As the prosecution team basked In its victory yesterday, the 31-year old Propper chided Cornick, saying "Hey, Carter, weren't you the one that said :thIs-easwyould never go.to;frial? You oweinti dinner." -- — U. S. Attorney Earl .T Silbert, who personally notified U.S. Attorney Gen- eral Griffin, B. Bell of the verdict, said that the :decikion 'I'was a Just one, a fair one." . _ Silbert said the 'verdict shows that 4terrotism anywhere, but particularly - in the nation's capital. will not be tol- eratech He pledged that the govern- ment, "to the best of our efforts," :would pursude the extradiction of the Chileans and the arrest of the two fu- gitivethbana. The trial of the three Cubans brought the drama of clandestine in- ternational intrigue to a Washington courtroom. At. various times during 21 days of testlmorir end arguments, some,of it heard with tne jury outside the, courtroom, there were tales of a midnight rendezvous to plant the bomb in Leteller's car, an abortive as- sassination mission to Mexico, and MICHAEL TOWNLEY Ross' discussion of an alleged plot to . key witness blow up Russian ships in American ORLANDO LETELIER harbors and. his purported participa- ... slain In car-bombing