Leading Socialist Dies From Cancer

Clodomiro Almeyda, a leading member of Chile’s Socialist Party, died Monday of cancer, party members said. He was 74.

Almeyda was the Chilean ambassador to Moscow who sheltered former East German ruler Erich Honecker at the embassy in 1991 and eventually arranged for his exile in Chile, where he died a year later.

He was foreign minister in the leftist government of President Salvador Allende, toppled in a bloody 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

After spending several months at a concentration camp after the coup, Almeyda was allowed to go into exile in East Germany.