Chileans Ask: Will General Go Willingly to Prison? : Justice: Former secret police chief convicted of murder hints he’ll resist sentence. His fate could depend on army’s backing.

Now that the Chilean Supreme Court has sentenced a former secret police chief to prison for ordering a 1976 assassination in Washington, D.C., this nervous nation is asking: Will he go peacefully?

After Tuesday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold a seven-year sentence for retired army Gen. Manuel Contreras, 66, the former secret police chief told a television interviewer: “I am not going to any jail as long as there is no real justice.”

That fueled speculation that he would resist arrest, possibly provoking an armed confrontation.

In a news conference Wednesday on his ranch in southern Chile, Contreras evaded repeated questions about whether he would resist.

“I’ll do what is necessary at the opportune time,” he said.

Some analysts fear that if Contreras refuses to go to jail, as his son has said he may, the army could be drawn into a conflict with unforeseeable consequences. Many army officers are known to sympathize with Contreras, but the army has avoided any comment on the verdict.

Claudio Fuentes, a military analyst in Santiago, said the army’s silence is a sign that it does not intend to defend Contreras. But if he resists and the army is called upon to help subdue him, the rule of law in Chile could be strained, Fuentes said.

Although Chile has been governed by elected civilians since 1990 and its democracy seems strong, the country tends to tremble when the army gets nervous. Nothing seems to make army officers more nervous than fears of “persecution” for the thousands of human rights abuses committed under military rule from 1973 to 1990.

Government officials, obviously intent on calming military nerves and avoiding a confrontation, have taken pains to emphasize that the verdict against Contreras is not a judgment against the army. Contreras has done the opposite. “The army has been wounded,” he said Tuesday.

Contreras’ vow not to go to jail has been interpreted as an appeal for military support. He claimed Wednesday to have received many calls of solidarity from officers. But Fuentes said: “The point is: Who is behind him? I don’t think he has the support he says he has.”

Other analysts said Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the 79-year-old commander in chief of the army who headed the former military government, has helped persuade other generals against getting involved on Contreras’ behalf.

“Pinochet’s role has been to try to keep a lid on these things,” one foreign analyst said.

When Contreras was asked Wednesday whether he would submit to his prison sentence if Pinochet asked him to, he replied: “My Gen. Pinochet can say whatever he likes.”

Pinochet headed the repressive military regime that began with a bloody coup in 1973 and turned power over to an elected civilian administration in 1990. The constitution he left in place permits him to stay on as commander of the army until 1997.

In its Tuesday decision, the Supreme Court confirmed the conviction of Contreras for the 1976 car-bomb murder of Orlando Letelier, a prominent Chilean exile who lobbied actively in Washington against Pinochet’s regime.

The court also upheld a six-year prison sentence for Brig. Pedro Espinoza, who was chief of operations in the regime’s feared secret police. Espinoza, still on active duty in the army, said Tuesday that he will submit to the sentence.

Interior Minister Carlos Figueroa told reporters Wednesday that the sentence against Contreras would be carried out through dialogue, persuasion or “even by force.”