Sergio Arellano Stark, a Chilean general whose airborne “Caravan of Death” murdered opponents of the 1973 coup that deposed Chile’s democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, died on March 9 in Santiago de Chile. He was 94.

His death, from complications of dementia, was confirmed by the Chilean Defense Ministry.

General Arellano was a principal architect of the coup of Sept. 11, 1973, that installed Augusto Pinochet, a fellow army general, as president. He went on to provide the muscle that brutally consolidated Pinochet’s power in the early days of what would be a 17-year reign.

“Pinochet set in motion a series of massacres that came to be known as ‘the Caravan of Death,’ ” Peter Kornbluh wrote in “The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability” (2003).

Pinochet, he continued, dispatched General Arellano “to ‘expedite’ justice in the cases of political prisoners — regional representatives of the Popular Unity government, mayors, police chiefs, prominent trade unionists and civic leaders in the northern provinces.”