Chilean Court Sentences Three Former Agents to 15 Years for 1976 Washington Bombing

A Santiago court has sentenced three former agents of Chile's secret police to 15 years in prison each for their roles in the September 1976 car-bomb murder of Ronni Karpen Moffitt in Washington DC. The ruling marks the first convictions tied directly to Moffitt's death.

Judge Paola Plaza, designated as a special minister for human rights, found that Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga participated in planning and executing the attack that also killed former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier.

Background of the attack On 21 September 1976, a bomb exploded under the car carrying Letelier and Moffitt as they drove along Massachusetts Avenue Northwest. Letelier, a prominent critic of the military government living in exile, had arrived in the United States in January 1975 after imprisonment in Chile.

The court determined that agents of the Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia, led by Manuel Contreras, conducted surveillance on Letelier and carried out the operation on foreign soil. Several Chilean military officials and U.S. citizen Michael Townley received sentences in the 1990s for related charges.

Case reopened and verdict In 2012 a Santiago appeals court ordered Moffitt's case reopened because the perpetrators were Chilean nationals. Espinoza and Iturriaga were already serving lengthy sentences for other human-rights violations and remained in custody at a facility outside Santiago.

Zara, who had completed a prior 15-year term and been released in August 2025, was rearrested following the new verdict. Juan Gabriel Valdés, who served as Chile's ambassador in Washington until March 2026, posted that justice arrived after 49 years and 97 days.