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.
General Juan Manuel Guillermo Contreras SepĂșlveda (born May 4, 1929) was the head of Augusto Pinochet's National Intelligence Directorate (DINA) and one of the most powerful and feared men in Chile after a military coup headed by Pinochet and other Chilean militaries overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973.
The CIA became concerned with Contrera's role in the assassination of former Salvador Allende cabinet member and ambassador to Washington Orlando Letelier and his American assistant, Ronni Karpen Moffit in Washington, DC, on September 21, 1976.
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.
ManuelContreras, born in Madrid in 1928, entered the guitar making profession from the exalted position of being a much sought after cabinet maker.
Although Contreras should not be considered as being a luthier opposed to tradition, as his primary model, the 1st Special guitar, is firmly based on the development of the traditionally accepted ideas of construction, his inquisitive character led him to work, from the early 70s, on a number of unusual instruments.
In the mid 1980s, Contreras thought up the "Sounding Back Support", a design that he developed, already working side by side with his son ManuelContreras JR, during some years, up to the moment when they definitively incorporated this item to their top line guitars.
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