Pinochet loses his immunity

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.

The president of the Santiago Court of Appeals, Juan Escobar, said the justices voted 17-6 to remove the immunity that 90-year-old-retired general enjoys as a former president.

The ruling can be appealed before the Supreme Court.

The decision allows the judge handling the case, Victor Montiglio, to indict Pinochet and adds to the complicated legal situation for the former dictator, who also faces charges of human rights abuses, tax evasion and corruption.

But the same court also upheld another panel’s ruling granting Pinochet freedom on bail from the house arrest he has been under since November 24 in a previous indictment for the killing and disappearance of nine dissidents.

Bail was set at 10 million pesos (€14,551).

Today’s ruling reopened one of the most notorious human rights cases involving Pinochet’s 1973-90 dictatorship – the so-called Caravan of Death, in which 75 jailed dissidents were killed by a military party that toured the country in a helicopter from north to south in the weeks immediately after the coup.

The case had been closed and all charges against Pinochet dropped on health grounds, but a prosecution lawyer, Juan Gurtierrez, discovered that two of the victims had not been included in the original process, and filed a new complaint.

The two victims were Wagner Salinas and Francisco Lara, members of Allende’s security detail.

Allende committed suicide in his presidential palace while it was under air and ground attack.

According to an official report by the civilian government that succeeded Pinochet, Salinas and Lara were arrested the same day of the coup, September 11, 1973, and executed three weeks later by a military firing squad.

In all, 46 Allende bodyguards were killed, some of them in combat with the soldiers that took the presidential palace.

The Caravan of Death prompted the first attempt to try the former strongman. He was indicted by now-retired Judge Juan Guzman, but all charges were dropped after the Supreme Court ruled that Pinochet’s health prevented him from standing trial.

Health has rescued Pinochet from trial attempts four times, and his lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez, is using the same argument in appeals to block the still-pending cases, two on human rights, one on tax evasion and corruption charges.

Pinochet has been diagnosed a mild dementia resulting from several strokes, diabetes and arthritis and has a pacemaker, but the last tests by court appointed doctors indicates he is fit to stand trial.