CHILE’S Supreme Court opened hearings yesterday on whether to uphold the indictment and house arrest of General Augusto Pinochet on human rights charges, after the former dictator was released from hospital after five days recovering from a stroke.

Chile’s former dictator General Augusto Pinochet is under house arrest after a judge indicted him for the kidnapping of nine dissidents and the killing of one of them during his 1973-1990 military regime.

An appeals court today stripped former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution for a 1974 car bombing that killed an exiled general.