-Caveat Lector- Tuesday September 11 8:30 AM ET Kissinger Sued for 1970 Slaying of Chilean General Photos Reuters Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The family of Chilean military commander Rene Schneider, killed during a botched kidnapping in 1970, has filed a lawsuit seeking more than $3 million in damages from Henry Kissinger and other Nixon administration officials, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. It quoted attorneys as saying the suit, filed on Monday in federal court in Washington, was based on recently declassified CIA (news - web sites) documents and sought damages from Kissinger, former CIA Director Richard Helms and the U.S. government for ``summary execution,'' assault and civil rights violations. The suit alleges that Schneider was targeted because he stood in the way of a military coup to prevent Salvador Allende from taking power as Chile's president. Allende was inaugurated in 1970 but was ousted in a bloody 1973 coup. The killing has long been considered to have been carried out by right-wing extremists within the Chilean military. Kissinger, who was President Richard Nixon's national security advise at the time, did not return a telephone message left at his New York office, the Post said. Helms denied wrongdoing, but would not discuss details, saying he hadn't seen the suit. ``It's a complicated case,'' he told the newspaper. ``The United States did not want Allende to assume the presidency, and my father was the only political obstacle for a military coup,'' the Post quoted Schneider's eldest son, also named Rene Schneider, as saying. ``Obviously, he had to be taken out of the way,'' said the son, who lives in Chile. He and his brother Raul, an artist living in Paris, are the named plaintiffs in the suit. Rene Schneider said documents made public over the past two years ``made me realize that my father's death is perhaps the one crime perpetrated outside the U.S. that most clearly links back to the U.S. government, the CIA, and Kissinger in particular.'' According to the suit, Nixon met with Kissinger and Helms on Sept. 15, 1970, and ordered steps to be taken to prevent Allende from taking power even though he had won the presidential election. Nixon authorized $10 million to be spent on a military coup. After two failed kidnapping attempts, Schneider was ambushed on his way to work on Oct. 22, 1972. The assailants shot him as he was getting out his gun to defend himself. He died in a military hospital three days later, a day after Chile's congress ratified Allende's victory, the Post said. Allende was in power for three years and died on Sept. 11, 1973, during a military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet (news - web sites) and indirectly supported by the CIA. Pinochet, who ruled until 1990, was arrested in London in 1998 but was freed after 16 months when Britain decided that he was too ill to be extradited to Spain to face torture charges. The former general was indicted in Chile for death squad killings, but attempts to prosecute him virtually ended in July when Chile's Appeals Court ruled he was mentally unfit to stand trial. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
