Fifty years after the assassination of Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States, the Trump administration has moved to deport Virgilio Paz Romero, a key suspect in the 1976 bombing that killed Letelier and his colleague Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C.
On September 21, 1976, Paz Romero, a Cuban exile and militant, allegedly detonated a bomb placed under the driver's seat of a car traveling near Sheridan Circle on Embassy Row, resulting in the deaths of two of the three passengers. The CIA later assessed that the assassination was ordered by then-Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet. The attack remained the deadliest foreign-sponsored terrorist incident in the U.S. capital until the September 11 attacks in 2001.
Paz served a relatively brief prison term after pleading guilty to a lesser charge related to the bombing. Following his release, he lived freely in Florida for decades, regarded by some in the anti-Castro exile community as a hero. However, federal immigration authorities detained him in Miami’s Krome immigrant detention center in January 2026 amid intensified efforts by the Trump administration to deport noncitizen immigrants with felony convictions. A federal judge denied his petition for release on August 28, citing ongoing efforts to deport him to a third country.
The assassination and its broader political context have been the focus of extensive investigations and declassified government documents. Newly released FBI material reveals that in 1999, then-Attorney General Janet Reno authorized a renewed investigation to determine whether sufficient evidence existed to implicate additional individuals—including Pinochet himself. Despite the CIA’s earlier conclusion that Pinochet ordered the killings, the former Chilean leader was never formally charged. Pinochet, who died in 2006, was known for overseeing covert operations against political opponents throughout South America during his time in power.
The renewed FBI inquiry involved a team that spent a month in Chile gathering witness testimony and reviewing tens of thousands of documents, including statements from U.S. senators and Henry Kissinger, a former U.S. secretary of state whose role in the 1973 Chilean coup has been widely examined. However, the results of this investigation and any recommendations for prosecution were never made public, and Justice Department officials declined to comment.
Other participants in the plot have faced varying legal outcomes. Michael Townley, a U.S.-Chilean citizen involved in the attack, cooperated with authorities and served a relatively short sentence. Armando Fernández Larios, a Chilean intelligence agent who confessed to helping plan the assassination, was detained by U.S. authorities multiple times and eventually released despite a lawsuit challenging his deportation.
Paz’s arrest in 1991 came after 15 years on the run following a tip from viewers of the television program “America’s Most Wanted.” After serving a seven-year prison sentence, he spent three years in immigration detention before being released in 2001 when the U.S. could not deport him to Cuba due to the absence of diplomatic relations.
Despite Cuba’s acceptance of some deportation flights in recent years, Paz has consistently refused to return to the country he fled as a teenager. His lawyers argued for his release from detention, citing serious medical issues, but a federal judge ruled that there was no sufficient evidence to halt removal proceedings and ordered that he be deported to a third country within 30 days or released under supervision.
The Department of Homeland Security has indicated it is pursuing all lawful avenues to expel Paz as part of a broader immigration enforcement effort, while the State Department is reportedly negotiating with another country to accept him. Next week’s anniversary will see memorial ceremonies near Sheridan Circle, where a monument honors Letelier and Moffitt. Paz’s potential deportation may coincide with these events, potentially closing one of the longest chapters in a case that has intertwined Cold War politics, terrorism, and immigration enforcement.