A Santiago appeals court on Tuesday lifted the immunity from prosecution of former dictator Augusto Pinochet (89), opening the way for him to be tried for financial fraud after the discovery that he had secret accounts in the United States, court sources said.
Chile’s internal revenue service filed the suit seeking that Pinochet be stripped of his immunity as a former head of state. It acted in addition to a suit filed by relatives, who are seeking damages, of about 3 000 people abducted and presumed killed during Pinochet’s iron-fisted 1973-1990 regime.
Pinochet’s defence still can appeal the ruling to Chile’s Supreme Court.
The judge in charge of the financial fraud case, Sergio Munoz, has estimated the assets of Pinochet, a former general, at $17-million.
Pinochet had 125 secret bank accounts holding cash, stocks and bonds in the US, allowing him to move at least $13-million, the US Senate reported on March 15.
In June, the US Senate revealed that Pinochet had accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, which may have held as much as $8-million.
According to Munoz’s investigation, Pinochet and his wife, Lucia Hiriart, salted away $15,9-million in various bank accounts.
Pinochet’s immunity already had been withdrawn last year so that he may face trial for his part in Operation Condor, a conspiracy of 1970s South American dictatorships to track opponents, murder them and spirit their bodies to other countries under military control: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. But Chilean law requires a request for immunity to be lifted for each individual lawsuit.
The former general, a symbol of Cold War repression who drove a deep political rift through his Andean nation, has never been put on trial for the murders and abductions that took place under his regime.
The corruption charges may be more damaging to Pinochet’s image than the human rights charges, because his supporters contend that he was a selfless soldier defending the country against socialism.
Pinochet seized power after a 1973 coup, which toppled elected Socialist president Salvador Allende, and ruled with an iron fist until 1990.
A court has released Pinochet on bail after being charged at the start of the year over the disappearance of political opponents during his military regime. — Sapa-AFP