Cuban Arrested in 1976 Slaying of Chile Envoy

A Cuban exile suspected of being the triggerman in the 1976 Washington car bombing that killed former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and an aide was arrested early Wednesday by FBI agents in St. Petersburg, Fla., ending a 12-year manhunt.

Jose Dioniso Suarez y Esquivel, 51, described as a member of a New Jersey-based anti-Castro group that has long been accused of terrorist activity, had eluded arrest since 1978 when he and seven others were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the mid-morning explosion that demolished Letelier’s car as he was driving along Washington’s Embassy Row.

A used car salesman at the time, Suarez had come to Washington, helped purchase components for the bomb at several local hardware stores and then helped a Chilean intelligence agent and another Cuban assemble the bomb in a motel, according to the FBI.

The Chilean agent, a U.S. citizen who has since been arrested and served a prison sentence in the case, has told investigators he believes that Suarez activated the bomb as he trailed Letelier at Sheridan Circle. The other Cuban sought in the case, Virgilio Pablo Paz y Romero, remains a fugitive.

The blast immediately killed Letelier, who served as the Chilean ambassador in Washington from 1970 to 1973 during the Marxist government of Salvador Allende, fatally injured Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a Letelier aide, and injured the aide’s husband, Michael Moffitt, who was sitting in a rear seat. The bombing became a divisive wedge in U.S. relations with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose government refused to extradite several intelligence officers implicated in the assassination.

FBI officials would not say what led them to the St. Petersburg house where agents found Suarez, who was known to his neighbors as “Jose Suarez,” an unemployed painter. Also found at the house were his wife, Elizabeth, and their 15-month-old son.