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04/01/2005
Pinochet declared fit to stand trial
Chile's Supreme Court has declared the country's former President, Augusto Pinochet, fit to stand trial on murder and kidnapping charges.
General Pinochet, who was arrested in the UK in 1998, has never stood trial for human rights violations during his rule in Chile between 1973 and 1990, despite several high profile cases against him.
He had been indicted in December and ordered to be placed under house by Judge Juan Guzman. However, the order was questioned by his lawyers, who claim that he is unfit to stand trial because of his deteriorated health.
Judge Guzman has charged Pinochet with nine kidnappings and one homicide in during 'Operation Condor', a joint plan by the dictatorships that ruled several South American countries in the 1970's and 1980's to suppress dissent. The charges filed by Guzman state that seven of the kidnapping victims were seized in Argentina, one in Paraguay and one in Bolivia, while one man was killed in Chile.
The Supreme Court had previously struck down another indictment filed by Guzman, back in 2002, which accused General Pinochet of other human rights violations, after doctors diagnosed the former dictator with a mild case of dementia. His lawyers have insisted that the condition has worsened, but judges have dismissed those arguments after seeing the dictator in a number of different situations, including an interview with a Spanish language television station in Miami, in which he appears lucid.
The ruling brings the 89-year-old former military ruler closer to trial, although his defence team will have other opportunities to block the proposed trial. Lawyers have claimed that General Pinochet, who was released from hospital shortly before Christmas, after military doctors said that he suffered a stroke, is not fit to stand trial and that the legal process could kill him.
There are several other legal cases pending, including an investigation into allegations that he kept as much as $8 million in secret accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, A court has also stripped him of immunity from prosecution for the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats in Argentina. General Prats, who was Pinochet's predecessor as Chilean army commander and was opposed to his 1973 coup, was killed by a car bomb, along with his wife.
(KMcA/SP)
General Pinochet, who was arrested in the UK in 1998, has never stood trial for human rights violations during his rule in Chile between 1973 and 1990, despite several high profile cases against him.
He had been indicted in December and ordered to be placed under house by Judge Juan Guzman. However, the order was questioned by his lawyers, who claim that he is unfit to stand trial because of his deteriorated health.
Judge Guzman has charged Pinochet with nine kidnappings and one homicide in during 'Operation Condor', a joint plan by the dictatorships that ruled several South American countries in the 1970's and 1980's to suppress dissent. The charges filed by Guzman state that seven of the kidnapping victims were seized in Argentina, one in Paraguay and one in Bolivia, while one man was killed in Chile.
The Supreme Court had previously struck down another indictment filed by Guzman, back in 2002, which accused General Pinochet of other human rights violations, after doctors diagnosed the former dictator with a mild case of dementia. His lawyers have insisted that the condition has worsened, but judges have dismissed those arguments after seeing the dictator in a number of different situations, including an interview with a Spanish language television station in Miami, in which he appears lucid.
The ruling brings the 89-year-old former military ruler closer to trial, although his defence team will have other opportunities to block the proposed trial. Lawyers have claimed that General Pinochet, who was released from hospital shortly before Christmas, after military doctors said that he suffered a stroke, is not fit to stand trial and that the legal process could kill him.
There are several other legal cases pending, including an investigation into allegations that he kept as much as $8 million in secret accounts at Riggs Bank in Washington, A court has also stripped him of immunity from prosecution for the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats in Argentina. General Prats, who was Pinochet's predecessor as Chilean army commander and was opposed to his 1973 coup, was killed by a car bomb, along with his wife.
(KMcA/SP)
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