Raúl Iturriaga

[1] In June 2007, Iturriaga went into hiding to escape a 10-year prison sentence handed down by judge Alejandro Solís (reduced to five years by the Chilean Supreme Court) for the forced disappearance of Revolutionary Left Movement member Luis San Martín.

[5] Raúl Iturriaga became a counter-insurgency instructor after taking courses with his future chief, Manuel Contreras, in Fort Gulick,[6] an installation of the United States Department of Defense School of the Americas based in the Panama Canal[7] where he also learned parachuting, a discipline in its infancy in Chile at the time.

First responsible for the Department of Exterior Affairs of the DINA, he was named head of the Brigada Purén, based in Villa Grimaldi, in December 1975.

[6][7] In his defense, Iturriaga argues that there is no evidence linking him to the operation and that the accusations against him are "unfounded" and that the "presumptions of guilt" that have been made against him do not meet the necessary legal standards to be considered valid.

[10][11] At the end of 1989, he was appointed Director General of National Mobilization for the next government of Patricio Aylwin, where he was to plan and coordinate actions in the Chilean Armed Forces.

The same year, he was interrogated by Minister Adolfo Bañados concerning the DINA's role in the assassination of Orlando Letelier, Salvador Allende's former minister, in Washington, D.C.[7] In 1995, Iturriaga was also condemned to 18 years' imprisonment by the Italian Judiciary in absentia in the case about the 1975 failed assassination attempt against Christian Democrat Bernardo Leighton in Rome, which occurred on October 6, 1975, when Leighton was shot along with his wife by Italian neo-fascists in association with Stefano delle Chiaie outside the apartment building where he lived.

[1] Iturriaga was also requested by the then Spanish magistrate, Baltasar Garzón as he was accused to have played a prominent role in the assassination of Spanish-Chilean United Nations diplomat Carmelo Soria as well.

[2] The Prats case, part of Operation Condor, opened up in Chile following an extradition request made by the Argentine magistrate María Servini de Cubría.

[citation needed] The former vice-head of staff of the Chilean Army, General Guillermo Garín, who was also Pinochet's spokesman, gave his support to Iturriaga following his escape on 11 June 2007.

[2] Iturriaga had been sentenced to five years for the kidnapping of Luis Dagoberto San Martín, a 21-year-old opponent of Pinochet who "disappeared" in a DINA detention centre in 1974.

Contreras was on the run from justice for two months, taking refuge in the south and then in a military regiment, before being captured by security forces and detained.

[18] On 2 June 2017, Iturriaga was among 106 former intelligence officers who Chilean Judge Hernán Cristoso sentenced to prison for a judicial case involving the kidnapping and murder of 16 leftist activists in 1974 and 1975.

[21] On 22 August 2023, Iturriaga was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Chile to 15 years and one day in prison in the judicial case about the assassination of Carmelo Soria.