Daniel Anthony Mitrione was a US government official in Latin America.
15 Facts About Dan Mitrione
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2.
Dan Mitrione was kidnapped and executed by the Tupamaros guerrilla group fighting against the authoritarian government in Montevideo, Uruguay.
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Dan Mitrione was born in Italy, the second son of Joseph and Maria Mitrione.
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Dan Mitrione started as a patrolman in 1945, rising through the ranks until he was hired as the Richmond chief of police in 1956, a position which he held until 1960.
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In 1960, Dan Mitrione joined the Public Safety program of the International Cooperation Administration.
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In 1969, Dan Mitrione was appointed the OPS Chief Public Safety Adviser in Montevideo, Uruguay.
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Former Uruguayan police officials and CIA operatives stated Dan Mitrione had taught torture techniques to Uruguayan police in the cellar of his Montevideo home, including the use of electrical shocks delivered to his victims' mouths and genitals.
8.
In 1978, at the 11th International Youth Festival in Cuba, Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, a Cuban who claimed to have infiltrated the CIA as double agent from 1962 to 1970, stated that Dan Mitrione ordered the abduction of homeless people, so that he could use them as 'guinea pigs' in his torture classes.
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Dan Mitrione said that attempts would be made to keep each victim alive for multiple torture sessions, but that torture would eventually kill them, and that their mutilated bodies would be dumped in the streets.
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Dan Mitrione claimed that Mitrione personally tortured four homeless people to death.
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Dan Mitrione was kidnapped by the Tupamaros on July 31,1970 demanding the release of 150 political prisoners.
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The Uruguayan government, with US backing, refused and Dan Mitrione was later found dead in a car, shot twice in the head.
13.
In 1987, two years after being released from prison, the leader of the Tupamaros, Raul Sendic, said in an interview that Dan Mitrione had been selected for kidnapping because he had trained police in riot control, and as retaliation for the deaths of student protestors.
14.
The Mitrione case continued to reverberate within US-Uruguayan relations in 2008, with US Ambassador to Uruguay Frank E Baxter being involved in high level exchanges about Uruguayan investigations into other crimes committed during the country's civilian-military dictatorship from 1973 until 1985, to which linkages were allegedly perceived.
15.
The kidnapping and the execution of Dan Mitrione are central to the plot of the novel El color que el infierno me escondiera by Uruguayan author Carlos Martinez Moreno.