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This Tuesday, Vianel Valdivieso, a key figure in the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), died, as confirmed by Radio Bío Bío.
His death occurred in the middle of the fire registered this morning in a building located on Calle Arturo Prat with Andrés Bello de Temuco, which forced the evacuation of 500 people.
The uniformed He was a close friend of Manuel Contreras, as recorded in Murder in Washington, a book published by John Dinges and Saul Landau that extensively covers the murder of Orlando Letelier.
Valdivieso was “one of the closest confidants of Contreras, coordinator of the DINA network in charge of interceptions and electronic surveillance,” the letter reads.
In 1976 he was designated by the dictatorship as director of Entel.
Likewise, according to the Memoria Viva site, “when Manuel Contreras left DINA in 1978, Vianel Valdivieso was his direct partner in the construction company Conas (Official Gazette, March 10, 1978), in the company Conpala Ltda., ( Official Gazette March 10, 1978), and in the company Electro Ltda ”.
Frei, Townley and Operation Silence
In his role as an agent of Pinochet’s police, he was in charge of carrying out the “Operation Silence”, an offensive that -as is clear from its name- silenced practically all the Chilean media on the day of the coup d’état.
He also served as head honcho of the DINA Electronic Intelligence Brigade, which is why he was formally Michael Townley’s boss in the Quetropillán Brigade.
The American agent was involved in a long list of crimes during the dictatorship. Among them are the murders of General Carlos Pratt, that of Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and that of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria.
According to court records, Valdivieso also acted as superior of the Army noncommissioned officer who revealed how they “tapped” Eduardo Frei Montalva’s phone, prior to the death of the former president.
His last sentence
At the beginning of this year, Vianel had been convicted of the murder of the Army corporal and also a member of the DINA, Manuel Leyton Robles, which occurred in 1977.
According to the file from the Museum of Memory, a former DINA agent declared in court in another process that Manuel Leyton died of Sarin gas poisoning, “Highly poisonous element whose effects can be confused with a heart attack.”
For this crime he had to serve a sentence of 10 years and one day in prison as co-author.
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