Corporal Diaz was an army official in San Theodoros. He is first seen being demoted from the rank of Colonel by General Alcazar who replaced Diaz with Tintin after Diaz complained that his army had too many colonels and too few corporals.
History[]
Diaz as seen in the book series.
Diaz was a colonel and Alcazar's aide-de-camp. He complained to Alcazar about an enormous number of colonels and lack of corporals and suggested that Tintin should become a corporal. After that suggestion, Alcazar demoted Diaz to a corporal. As a result, Diaz swore revenge by joining a terrorist group.
In his revenge, he engaged in repeatedly unsuccessful assassination attempts against Alcazar and Tintin.
He first threw a bomb in Alcazar's office, but Tintin saw it and threw it out, knocking Diaz into a fountain.
In his second attempt, he brought dynamite but forgot to bring in the matches. Coincidentally, Alcazar threw a cigar out the window and landed on Diaz's hat, catching him on fire and forcing him to jump into a fountain again.
Then he finally lit the bomb and hid behind a statue of General Olivaro. The dynamite exploded, and the head of the statue he was hiding behind was blown off and fell on Diaz's head. Alcazar, coincidentally confirmed by the one of the doctors had suffered from jaundice from that explosion. Diaz meanwhile, was rebuked by his boss for incorrectly planting the bomb.
His last attempt, leading to his death, was when he a time bomb given by his boss that was supposed to explode at exactly 11 o'clock to kill Alcazar. On the way, Diaz noticed his watch had stopped working and looked at a street clock, which he thought it was 10 o'clock.
It turns out all the city clocks were also incorrect, as the repair workers and sent out to fix them, and when Diaz looked at the clock again, the actual time was 11 o'clock, one hour later than Diaz thought. Ironically, at the same time, Alcazar had arrested and sentenced Tintin to death due to faked evidence against him and promoted Diaz back to colonel just before the bomb blew up, killing Diaz.