Pinochet's grandson kicked out of army

The soldier grandson of General Augusto Pinochet has been thrown out of the Chilean army after causing an uproar with a funeral speech denouncing judges who had tried the late dictator.

General Oscar Izurieta said the announcement that Capt Augusto Pinochet Molina, 34, had been discharged was delayed 24 hours out of “respect to his family”.

Pinochet Molina defended his grandfather’s bloody 1973 coup during a speech at his funeral on Tuesday and said judges who later sought to prosecute him were seeking notoriety, not justice.

The comment brought applause from mourners and censure from the president, demonstrating yet again Chile’s deep divisions over the former military dictatorship.

President Michelle Bachelet – herself once imprisoned under the dictatorship - issued a statement yesterday calling the soldier’s comments “an extremely serious offence” because it was an attack against a branch of government.

She said she expected the army to take “necessary measures” to punish the officer, but his father, also named Augusto, said the captain was already planning to leave the army.

Pinochet Molina, an army engineer, was reported to be attending a family religious service for his grandfather at a residence south west of the Chilean capital yesterday. He did not comment on the controversy.

Pinochet died on Sunday, but the government denied him the state funeral normally awarded to former presidents because he was never elected but took power by force, toppling elected Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973.

Instead, the general received military honours.

During the main ceremony on Tuesday, Pinochet Molina unexpectedly appeared at the speakers’ podium and said Pinochet “defeated Marxism, which attempted to impose its totalitarian model”, gaining an ovation from mourners.

He also criticised judges who put the ailing general under indictment or house arrest several times for deaths and torture during his 1973-90 reign. Those judges, Pinochet Molina said, “sought notoriety, not justice”.

Bachelet said the officer was not scheduled to speak but “jumping over the line of command, broke into the ceremony”.

Bachelet said that the former dictator’s death “symbolises the departure of a person who caused an atmosphere of divisions, hatred and violence, but it is not a new era”.

Nearly 60,000 mourners, many in tears, had earlier filed past Pinochet’s glass-covered coffin at the Santiago Military Academy.

In the only incident during the long night, a man spat on the glass covering Pinochet’s face inside the casket, the army said. He was detained by military guards, but later released.

He was identified as Francisco Cuadrados Prats, a grandson of General Carlos Prats, Pinochet’s predecessor as army commander, who was assassinated in exile in Argentina in 1974.

After the funeral, Pinochet’s body was flown by helicopter to a cemetery in nearby Vina del Mar to be cremated, a decision he made to avoid the desecration of his tomb by enemies, according to the family.

According to an official report, 3,197 people were killed for political reasons in the 17 years after Pinochet overthrew Allende in the September 11 1973 coup.

More than 30,000 were tortured, many more illegally imprisoned and tens of thousands were forced into exile. Allende committed suicide rather than surrender during the 1973 coup.

Although thousands paid tribute to Pinochet, fervent supporters are a dwindling minority in Chile.

Many who endorsed his firm hand against communism turned against him after learning that his family allegedly spirited £14.5m (€21.6m) into foreign bank accounts.