NATION : 12-Year Sentence in Bomb Plot
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WASHINGTON — A federal judge today sentenced Jose Dionisio Suarez Esquivel to 12 years in prison for conspiring to assassinate one-time Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier.
Suarez admitted in September that he gave a blasting cap to former Chilean intelligence agent Michael V. Townley, who allegedly masterminded the assassination.
Letelier and an associate, Ronni Moffitt, were killed Sept. 21, 1976, when a bomb exploded beneath his car on Embassy Row. Letelier, Chile’s ambassador to Washington from 1971 to 1973, was an outspoken critic of the right-wing military government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Defense attorney Paul Goldberger asked the judge to “show some leniency” in sentencing Suarez, noting that he has a wife and an infant son. But U.S. District Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. said the victims should be remembered.
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