Former Agent for Pinochet Is Found Slain in Argentina

The former agent, Enrique Arancibia Clavel, was found in his apartment on Thursday with multiple stab wounds, and a cash box containing wads of bills was apparently missing, leading investigators to suspect robbery, two government officials said Friday.

“The victim ran a taxi business with four drivers, and it’s believed the motive is there — that he kept a lot of money that wasn’t deposited in banks,” one of the Argentine officials said.

Investigators also suspect that Mr. Arancibia Clavel knew his attacker, because there were no signs of forced entry to the apartment, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The police have not yet made any official statements on the case.

Mr. Arancibia Clavel was sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for organizing the car bombing in Buenos Aires of a former Chilean army chief, Carlos Prats, a leading critic of General Pinochet, and his wife, Sofía Cuthbert. He was later freed when Argentine judges ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.

In Chile on Friday, the Pratses’ daughters and Mr. Arancibia Clavel’s family said they were too shocked to comment.

Hugo Guttiérrez, a Communist member of the human rights commission in Chile’s lower house of Congress, said it was important to learn the circumstances of the former secret-police agent’s death. Mr. Arancibia Clavel took part in Operation Condor, a group effort by South America’s dictatorships to eliminate leftist dissent in all of their countries.

General Pinochet died in 2006 at 91.