FBI may know Muñiz Varela killer

Muñiz Varela and his Viajes Varadero agency organized travel from Puerto Rico to Cuba during the mid-1970s. He was 25 years old when he was mortally wounded in a shooting in San Juan on April 1979.

Family members and friends have continued to work to try to clear the unsolved murder case, primarily by securing declassified federal documents under the Freedom of Information Act. It is widely believed the slaying was politically motivated.

The effort includes the recent submission of declassified FBI documents from more than three decades ago that show that an informant told the federal agency in 1979 who committed the killing. The documents, declassified in November 2011, have been redacted to omit the names of the informant and the alleged suspect.

The redacted document, created in 1979, says the attack was coordinated with Coordinadora de Organizaciones Revolucionarias Unidas (CORU) elements in San Juan, characterizing CORU as a coalition of five “anti-Castro terrorist organizations” formed in Santo Domingo.

The document says Muñiz’s alleged killer was not involved in attempted bombings at Viajes Varadero in 1979 and 1980.

The slain businessman’s son Carlos Muñiz Pérez, and business partner Raúl Alzaga are calling for the local Justice Department to demand that the FBI provide the documents with the names legible.

Former FBI Special Agent in Charge Luis Fraticelli told former Justice Secretary Roberto Sánchez Ramos during the last term that the federal agency had the names of possible suspects.