Fresh bid to put Pinochet on trial

A Chilean court has agreed to hear a new request to strip former dictator General Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution and allow him to stand trial for human rights abuses during his regime.

But it remains unlikely that the 88-year-old Pinochet would ever be tried because the Supreme Court, the nation’s highest judicial authority, has repeatedly ruled that he is mentally and physically unfit to stand trial.

The Santiago Court of Appeals agreed to consider a request to remove the ex-dictator’s immunity filed by lawyers representing the relatives of those who disappeared during Pinochet’s 1973-90 regime, said a court clerk yesterday.

The request was relayed by a member of the court, Judge Juan Guzman, who unsuccessfully attempted to try Pinochet for rights abuses two years ago.

No date was set for the hearing before the Court of Appeals.

The families are trying to put Pinochet on trial for the killing of several of his opponents in neighbouring countries in the 1970s. Their lawyers claim the victims were killed by Chile’s security services as part of the so-called “Operation Condor”, an alleged repression plan co-ordinated by the military regimes then ruling in the southern cone of South America.

Pablo Rodriguez, a lawyer for Pinochet, dismissed the latest effort to bring the ailing retired general to trial as “a circus”.

“These communist lawyers seem to be still living in Soviet Union times,” Mr Rodriguez said. “The Supreme Court has ruled that General Pinochet is unfit to stand trial.”

Pinochet opponents have encountered huge roadblocks in their efforts to put him on trial. In each case, prosecutors must first request that the courts lift the immunity he enjoys as an ex-president. Then, they must convince the courts that he is mentally and physically fit to stand trial.

The Supreme Court has intervened several times to halt attempts to try Pinochet after court-appointed doctors diagnosed him as suffering from a mild case of dementia. In addition, he reportedly has diabetes and arthritis, a heart condition that requires a pacemaker, and has suffered three mild strokes since 1998.

Anti-Pinochet lawyers insist that the former dictator is fit to stand trial, citing an interview he gave last month to a Miami television station in which he caused an uproar in Chile by describing himself as “a good angel”.

“He is not crazy, as demonstrated by his interview last month with that Miami TV station,” said Eduardo Contreras, the lead lawyer for the victim’s families.

According to a report by the civilian government that succeeded Pinochet in 1990, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during his long reign, including 1,197 who are listed as disappeared and presumed dead.