Gerardo Huber

Gerardo Huber Olivares (disappeared 29 January 1992; body found 20 February 1992) was a Chilean Army Colonel and agent of the DINA, Chile's intelligence agency. He was in charge of purchasing weapons abroad for the army. Huber was assassinated shortly before he was due to testify before Magistrate Hernán Correa de la Cerda in a case concerning the illegal export of weapons to the Croatian army. That enterprise involved 370 tons of weapons sold to the Croatian government by Chile on 7 December 1991, when Croatia was under a United Nations embargo arising from the war in Yugoslavia. In January 1992, Magistrate Correa sought testimony from Huber on the deal. However, Huber may well have been silenced to avoid implicating the Dictator, then-Commander-in-Chief of the Army Augusto Pinochet, who was himself awaiting trial on related charges.

Life Gerardo Huber graduated from military school in 1964, specializing in engineering. Ten years later, after Augusto Pinochet's coup in 1973, he began working for the DINA intelligence agency and was sent to Argentina to infiltrate groups supporting the Chilean MIR faction in its struggle against Pinochet's dictatorship. but would eventually leave Chile and be reprimanded into U.S. custody in April 1978 for his role in the Orlando Letelier-Ronnie Monfitt assassination.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Huber was sent to the military chemical installation in Talagante. and head of the Chilean Famae (Fábricas y Maestranzas del Ejército, Factories and Arsenals of the Army of Chile), the quasi-military firm in charge of producing the weapons. The agreement was worth more than US$6 million; the weaponry purchased included 370 tons of weaponry, including SG 542 firearms, Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles, Mamba anti-tank missiles, rockets, grenades, mortars, and loads of 7.62mm ammunition.

Investigations Chilean police at first declared Huber's death to be a suicide. In 1996, Magistrate María Soledad Espina, in charge of investigations concerning Huber's case, categorically excluded the possibility of suicide. General Lizárraga, the number two man at DINE, had previously denied this meeting took place.

Convictions Investigations into the murder officially ended in July 2007. Following their trial, on 5 October 2009 a civilian court convicted Generals Lizárraga and Krum and Colonels Provis and Munoz of the murder of Huber. Lizárraga and Provis were also convicted of conspiracy, receiving ten and eight years' imprisonment respectively. Munoz was sentenced to 600 days in prison for murder. General Covarrubias was found not guilty of all charges. This brought to a close the proceedings against the officers, as well as others; eleven men had already been convicted and sentenced by a military court in June 2009 for their part in the arrangement of the arms deal. The identity of the actual gunman was not disclosed by the court.

Berríos and Les Assassins The Berríos murder case, involving the DINA biochemist found dead in Uruguay, has been linked by investigating magistrates to the Huber case. In both cases, the DINE was involved. Like Huber, Berríos probably was seen as knowing too much, as he had been implicated both in the Letelier case and in the production of black cocaine and sarin for Pinochet. Berríos escaped from Chile in 1992, assisted by a Special Unit of the DINE known as Operación Silencio (Operation Silence). Furthermore, Main Cargo, the firm which worked with Famae to export the weapons, was owned by Marianne Cheyre Stevenson, the sister of Juan Carlos Cheyre. Stevenson also owned the restaurant Les Assassins, where Berríos met with drug-dealers and former DINA agents in the early 1990s. The Cheyres are distant relatives of Juan Emilio Cheyre, Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Army from 2002 to 2006.