The 1975 shooting of Chilean exile Bernardo Leighton in Rome exposed Operation Condor's transnational reach and led to DINA chief Manuel Contreras being indicted in Italy.
Key Facts
- Date of attack
- 6 October 1975
- Target
- Bernardo Leighton, former Chilean vice-president
- Leighton's wife injured
- Anita Fresno left permanently disabled
- Townley sentence (in absentia)
- 18 years with 2 years remission (March 1993)
- DINA chief indicted
- General Manuel Contreras indicted in Italy in 1995
- Ordering authority alleged
- Augusto Pinochet, per Vincenzo Vinciguerra testimony
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
After Pinochet's 1973 coup, Bernardo Leighton fled Chile and openly opposed the military regime from exile in Rome. DINA, Chile's secret police under General Manuel Contreras, targeted dissidents abroad as part of a broader campaign against exiled opponents, one year after similarly assassinating General Prats in Buenos Aires in 1974.
On 6 October 1975, gunmen in Rome shot Bernardo Leighton and his wife Anita Fresno in an assassination attempt. Leighton survived but was seriously wounded, while his wife was permanently disabled. The attack was later attributed to Michael Townley acting on behalf of DINA, with assistance from Italian neo-fascist National Vanguard members.
Italian courts convicted Townley in absentia in 1993 and indicted DINA chief Manuel Contreras in 1995, though Chile could not extradite him as he was already imprisoned for the Letelier assassination. The case became key evidence of Operation Condor, the coordinated campaign by South American dictatorships to eliminate political opponents across borders.