The Weekender – Teruggi and Horman

“The Weekender” is our new feature where every weekend we hope to highlight a short film, movie or documentary pertaining to the Americas.

On January 28th, Chilean officials published a court ruling against two former intelligence agents involved in the murder of U.S. citizens Frank Teruggi and Charles Horman shortly after the 1973 military coup. The decision issued on earlier in the month ordered Pedro Espinoza to serve seven years behind bars while his accomplice, Pedro Espinoza, was sentenced to two years of police supervision.

According to the lengthy 276-page ruling, Chile’s intelligence considered the actions of economics student Teruggi and filmmaker Horman as “subversive” and ordered their detention. Horman was kidnapped six days after Gen. Augusto Pinochet ousted the civilian government and killed “by the Military Intelligence Battalion or the Army Intelligence Headquarters.” Teruggi became one of the thousands of people herded into the National Stadium in Santiago, tortured by the military and murdered.

The tribunal also found that a U.S. military group in Chile led by then-Navy captain Ray E. Davis helped carry out a “secret investigation” on Teruggi and Horman. Davis was indicted by a Chilean court in 2011 and ordered his extradition though it was later revealed that he was living in a nursing home in the South American country. Much like Pinochet, Davis died in impunity but questions continue to linger over U.S. involvement in the deaths of Teruggi and Horman.

“Frank, a charitable and peace-loving young man, was the victim of a calculated crime by the Chilean military, but the question of U.S. complicity remains yet to be answered,” said Teruggi’s sister, Janis Teruggi Page.

Horman’s widow, meanwhile, expressed hope that the Chilean justice system will focus on other suspected human rights abusers from the Pinochet era.

“I hope this ruling will strengthen prosecutions for these crimes and stop these types of crime,” said Joyce Horman in an interview after he ruling was made public.

“The memories are still very fresh in my mind. It’s been almost 42 years and for a longtime everyone resisted pursuing an investigation as long as possible,” she added.

In the following video below the page break, Joyce talks with journalist Bob Herbert about receiving harassment prior to the coup, reacting to her husband’s disappearance and seeking for justice in the deaths of Teruggi and Horman.

Chile: Widow of Charles Horman Seeks Justice

The widow of slain U.S. journalist Charles Horman said that she is continuing to seek for justice in his death that occurred days after the 1973 military coup d’état in Chile.

“(Charles Harmon’s) story is just as relevant today as it was 40 years ago, and makes the cases against those responsible just as pressing,” wrote Joyce Horman in an article published in The Guardian on the fortieth anniversary of the coup.

She described how she “feared the worst” when she discovered that her husband disappeared on September 17, 1973 and the frustration against who hindered her efforts to locate her husband.

“In the days and weeks that followed, Charles' father, Ed Horman, and I sought the help of American officials. Rather than aiding our search, however, they inquired about our social circles, and asked if we had been "annoying" the Chileans… Charles was transformed from an American citizen who was entitled to protection, to a vulnerable and disposable threat to powerful forces” by U.S. officials,” claimed Joyce.

One month after he was kidnapped, Joyce was informed that Charles was executed by the military and was buried in the walls of the national stadium in Santiago.
 
The Horman case became the inspiration for the award-winning 1982 film “Missing” by the director Costa-Gavras.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government would deny any involvement in Horman’s death until 1999 when a declassified 1976 State Department memo admitted, “U.S. intelligence may have played an unfortunate part.”  These and other documents were instrumental in the 2011 indictment in a Chilean court of ex-U.S. Navy Capt. Ray E. Davis.  Davis was accused of providing Chilean military intelligence agents with information on Horman and Frank Teruggi, another U.S. citizen killed in Chile in 1973.

Chilean officials last year approved the extradition from the U.S. of Davis but thus far it hasn’t been served.

“If and when that happens, it would set an important precedent for a US military officer to be charged by another country for the death of American citizens,” Joyce mentioned.