Chile's top court upholds stripping Pinochet's immunity

Chile’s Supreme Court in Santiago has upheld a ruling stripping Gen Augusto Pinochet of his immunity against trial for the killing of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende, the Marxist president he toppled in a 1973 coup.

The court’s public relations office said Monday that the 13 justices decided on Friday to uphold a lower court ruling removing the immunity the ailing former dictator enjoys as a former president, but that details of the vote would only be announced after the decision is written.

The two bodyguards – Wagner Salinas and Francisco Lara – were arrested the day of the coup, September 11, 1973, and executed by a firing squad four weeks later, the military regime announced at the time. Salinas was a former South American heavyweight boxing champion.

The ruling allows the judge handling the case, Victor Montiglio, to try Pinochet, 90, on homicide charges. Montiglio, however, did not immediately state his plans.

All previous attempts to try Pinochet have failed because the courts ruled he is mentally and physically unfit to stand trial. He has been diagnosed with mild dementia resulting from several minor strokes. In addition, he suffers from diabetes and arthritis and has a pacemaker.

Pinochet’s lawyers have used his health to have charges dropped against him in two human rights cases.

He is currently under indictment in another human rights case and on tax evasion charges stemming from secret overseas accounts totalling around €23m. The accounts were first disclosed by a US Senate committee probing Riggs Bank of Washington.

The deaths of Salinas and Lara were part of the so-called Caravan of Death, one of the most prominent cases of rights abuses during Pinochet’s 1973-90 dictatorship. Seventy-five jailed dissidents were killed by a military operation that toured several Chilean cities in the weeks after the coup.

Pinochet was indicted in the case in 2001 but the Supreme Court dropped the charges one year later on health reasons. The cases of Salinas and Lara were not included in the original indictment because their relatives did not join the legal action against him at the time.

Scores of other legal actions have been filed against Pinochet by relatives of victims of repression under his regime, but prospects for a trial are considered close to nil.

During Pinochet’s rule, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons, according to a report by an independent commission appointed by the civilian government that succeeded him.