General Augusto Pinochet was today stripped of his immunity from prosecution on charges of responsibility for 59 cases of torture and kidnapping.

Chile’s former leader Augusto Pinochet was today stripped of his legal immunity against trial for the killing of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the Marxist president he toppled in the bloody 1973 coup that installed his long dictatorship.

An appeals court today turned down a request by lawyers for General Augusto Pinochet to release the former dictator from house arrest or drop human rights charges against him.

A CHILEAN court stripped General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution yesterday in a human rights case involving the killing of more than 100 dissidents.