Pinochet faces trial for kidnap and murder

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.

“Gen Pinochet has been declared mentally competent to face a criminal trial in Chile,” Judge Juan Guzman ruled yesterday, reversing a previous court decision that exempted Pinochet from trial because of his poor health.

Lawyers for the 89-year-old former ruler immediately announced they would appeal. Legal procedures could take months.

Guzman has won a reputation as a crusader judge in prominent human rights cases, including a previous trial against Pinochet that was dropped by the Supreme Court for health reasons.

A small group of victims of abuses under Pinochet’s regime or their relatives celebrated Guzman’s announcement in the court’s crowded hallways, while backers of the retired general were nowhere to be seen.

There was no immediate reaction from Pinochet, who remained at his guarded suburban Santiago mansion.

Guzman said he decided to try the former dictator after questioning him and carefully examining reports presented to him by three court-appointed doctors to determine whether he was healthy enough to stand trial.

He said that another element that contributed to his decision was an interview Pinochet granted last year to a Spanish-language Miami television station in which Pinochet said he sees himself as “a good angel”, and blamed the abuses by his regime on subordinates.

Guzman said Pinochet’s answers made him appear mentally alert.

“It was not difficult,” Guzman said of his decision, which was angrily disputed by Pinochet’s chief defence lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez.

Rodriguez recalled that the Supreme Court in 2001 dismissed the previous indictment of Pinochet by Guzman after doctors diagnosed the former ruler with a mild case of dementia. That condition, Rodriguez argued, has worsened.

He called the indictment and detention a violation of Pinochet’s basic human rights.

“This is a person that is being tried without having any possibilities whatsoever of defending himself,” Rodriguez claimed. “Everybody in Chile knows that Gen Pinochet has been constantly persecuted by judge Guzman.”

Prosecution lawyers and victims of the abuses or their relatives were exultant.

“It was worth to wait for so long,” said lawyer Eduardo Contreras. “We now expect other indictments will follow in other cases.”

Viviana Diaz, a member of an organisation of dissidents from the Pinochet regime called the indictment and detention “a historic decision that must be celebrated by all democrats. This is great news for all those Chileans who do not accept impunity in the violations of human rights.”

The trial of Pinochet is part of Guzman’s investigation of the so-called “Operation Condor”, a joint plan by the dictatorships that ruled several South American nations in the 1970s and 1980s to suppress dissidence.

The previous indictment of Pinochet stemmed from a case known as Caravan of Death, a reference to a military patrol that toured several cities weeks after the 1973 coup and left 75 political prisoners dead.

But the Supreme Court ruled Pinochet was physically and mentally unfit to stand trial due his dementia, and dropped the charges. Pinochet also has diabetes, arthritis and uses a pacemaker.

There may be more legal troubles ahead for Pinochet.

On December 2, the Santiago Court of Appeals voted 14-9 to strip him of immunity from prosecution for a 1974 car bombing that killed Chilean general Carlos Prats and his wife in Argentina – a decision that opened the possibility that Pinochet could stand trial in that case.

Prats, Pinochet’s predecessor as army chief, had opposed the 1973 coup that put Pinochet in power.

Pinochet is also being investigated by a judge to determine the source of up to €8.7m he kept in secret bank accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, as disclosed by a US Senate investigative committee.