General Carlos Prats González (February 24, 1915 - September 30, 1974) was a Chilean Army officer, a political figure, minister and Vice President of Chile during President Salvador Allende's government, and General Augusto Pinochet's predecessor as commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. In voluntary Argentinian exile immediately after Pinochet's September 11, 1973 coup, he was killed with a car bomb in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974, by the DINA.
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On September 30, 1974, in Buenos Aires, General Prats was killed along with his wife Sofia Cuthbert, outside his own apartment, by a radio-controlled car bomb, throwing debris up to the ninth storey balcony of the building across the street. Later, it was found that the assassination was planned by members of the Chilean secret police DINA, and carried out by the American expatriate and Chilean citizen Michael Townley, who would also carry out the Orlando Letelier assassination in 1976.
The actual motivation for these assassinations will never be known. However, following the September 11 coup of the year before, Carlos Prats had not only exiled himself, he had also made statements both public and private against the Junta and Pinochet. He had also signalled his willingness to assume the role of Commander in Chief of the Armed forces in exile, or even the role of President for a shadow government or government-in-exile.
Viewed in this context, the assassination of both Prats and later Letelier makes a great deal of sense, as both men deliberately set themselves up as potential presidents-in-waiting, and thus potential challenges to the legitimacy of the ruling Junta, and later of Pinochet himself.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Prats
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