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General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras Sepúlveda (born May 4, 1929) was the head of Augusto Pinochet's National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and one of the most powerful men in Chile during Pinochet's rule.
From 1973 to 1977, he led the agency on an international hunt to track down and murder the political opponents of the dictatorship, particularly members of the Communist and Socialist Parties and the Revolutionary Leftist Movement (MIR). Tensions between Contreras and Pinochet grew over the course of his tenure, however, and the DINA was closed down in 1977 and replaced with a new apparatus, the National Intelligence Center (CNI). By 1979, Contreras was out of the army after a short time at the rank of General.
In 1993, a Chilean court sentenced him to seven years in prison for the 1976 assassination of former Chilean government member Orlando Letelier. He completed his sentence in January 2001, after which he was placed under house arrest and then released.
In May 2002, he was convicted as the mastermind of the 1974 abduction and disappearance of Socialist Party leader Victor Olea Alegria. Contreras was also convicted by an Argentinean court in connection with the assassination of former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires in 1974. However, an extradition request by Argentina was denied by Chile.
On January 28, 2005 he was put in prison for the disappearance of tailor and MIR member Miguel Ángel Sandoval in 1975. The sentence time is 12 years.
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