DINA

For the Biblical Dina, see Dinah.

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Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (Spanish for National Intelligence Directorate) or DINA was the Chilean secret police during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Related Topics:
Chilean - Secret police - Dictatorship - Augusto Pinochet

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From its establishment in November 1973, DINA was headed by Manuel Contreras. It was officially created in June 1974 by decree #521, which gave it the power to detain persons during a declared state of emergency which ended up lasting for almost the entire length of the Pinochet regime. It is said to be responsible for the 1976 assassination of former Chilean government member Orlando Letelier.

Related Topics:
1973 - Manuel Contreras - 1976 - Orlando Letelier

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DINA existed until 1977, after which it was replaced by the Centro Nacional de Información (CNI) (Spanish for National Information Center). Its members were trained in the US's School of the Americas, known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation since January 2001.

Related Topics:
1977 - CNI - School of the Americas - Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation - 2001

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DINA is said to have had international agents, such as Michael Townley, who assasinated Letelier, as well as General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Related Topics:
Michael Townley - Carlos Prats - Buenos Aires - Argentina

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It was involved in Operation Condor's plan, as well as Operation Colombo. In July 1976, two magazines in Argentina and Brasil published the names of 119 Chilean leftist opponents, claiming they had been killed in internal fights. Those two magazines would disappear after this lone and only issue. Judge Juan Guzman would eventually ask Chilean justices to lift Pinochet's immunity in this case, having accumulated evidence that he had ordered the DINA to make up this disinformation plan, in order to cover up the "disparition" and murder by the Chilean secret police of those 119 persons. On September 2005, Chile's Supreme Court would accept to lift Pinochet's immunity on this case. Judge Victor Montiglio, who took up the case after Juan Guzman's retirement a few months before, has yet to nominate the doctors who would statue on Pinochet's health and ability to be interrogated. Victor Montiglio is known as a Pinochetist, and supports military auto-amnesty laws. He has already accorded amnisty to Manuel Contreras, who was given firm prison sentence in 2004 in the Operation Colombo trial.

Related Topics:
Operation Condor - Operation Colombo - Pinochet - Manuel Contreras - 2004

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Michael Townley worked with Eugenio Berrios on sarin gas in the 1990's, in a house DINA had in Lo Curro. Eugenio Berrios, who was murdered in 1995, was also linked with drug trafficers and agents of DEA.http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20050924/pags/20050924223646.html

Related Topics:
Michael Townley - Eugenio Berrios - DEA

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