Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial

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Pinochet is visited by Margaret Thatcher during his house arrest in London, in 1998

Main article: Augusto Pinochet

General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (born November 25, 1915) was head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, and which came to power in a violent coup which deposed socialist President Salvador Allende. His regime has been accused of human rights violations, both at home and abroad, and he was also personally accused of using his position to pursue personal enrichment. In the last decade, Pinochet was indicted by the Spanish government, arrested and released by the British government and, finally, arrested and prosecuted by the Chilean government itself. His poor health led the latter two governments to dismiss the idea of prosecution.

1 Arrest
- 1.1 Public positions
- 1.2 Significance of the arrest
2 Prosecution in Chile
- 2.1 Tax fraud and foreign bank accounts
- 2.2 Current allegations
3 Additional information

[edit] Arrest

In 1998 Pinochet, who still had much influence in Chile, travelled to the United Kingdom for medical treatment. While there, he was arrested under an international arrest warrant issued by judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain, and was placed under house arrest: initially in the clinic where he had just undergone back surgery, and later in a rented house. The charges included 94 counts of torture of Spanish citizens, and one count of conspiracy to commit torture. The government of Chile opposed his arrest, extradition to Spain, and trial.

There was a hard-fought 16-month legal battle in the House of Lords, the highest court of the United Kingdom. Pinochet claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state. This was rejected, but the Lords decided that only crimes alleged to have been committed could be considered. This invalidated most, but not all, of the charges against him; but the outcome was that extradition could proceed.

He was eventually released on medical grounds. He returned to Chile and resigned his senatorial seat in 2002, after a Supreme Court ruling that he suffered from "vascular dementia" and therefore could not stand trial for human rights abuses—allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, but never acted upon. In May 2004, Chile's supreme court ruled that he was capable of standing trial, and he was charged with several crimes in December of that year.

[edit] Public positions

In April 1999, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and George H. W. Bush, the Dalai Lama called upon the British government to release Augusto Pinochet. They all urged that Pinochet be allowed to return to his homeland rather than be forced to go to Spain.

There were then questions about Pinochet's allegedly fragile health. After medical tests, the Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled, despite the protests of legal and medical experts from several countries, that he should not be extradited, and on 2 March 2000, he returned to Chile.

Supporters of Pinochet credit him with staving off the beginning of Communism, fighting terrorism from radical groups such as MIR, and implementing free market policies that laid the groundwork for rapid economic growth that continued into the 1990s. His opponents charge him with destroying Chile's democracy, including by repressing radical groups such as MIR pushing for change, pursuing a policy of state terrorism, catering exclusively for private interests, and adopting economic policies that favored the wealthy and hurt the country's middle- and low-income sectors. While it was originally denied by his supporters, it is now generally accepted that Pinochet's government was responsible for torturing and killing thousands of people perceived to be opponents.

[edit] Significance of the arrest

Despite his release on grounds of ill-health, the unprecedented detention of Pinochet in a foreign country for crimes against humanity committed in his own country, without a warrant or request for extradition from his own country, marks a watershed in international law. Some scholars consider it one of the most important events since the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón's case was largely founded on the principle of universal jurisdiction—that certain crimes are so egregious that they constitute crimes against humanity and can therefore be prosecuted in any court in the world. The British House of Lords ruled that Pinochet had no right to immunity from prosecution as a former head of state, and could be put on trial. (See The Ripple Effect of the Pinochet Case.)

[edit] Prosecution in Chile

On August 8, 2000, the Supreme Court of Justice voted 14 to 6 to strip Pinochet of his parliamentary immunity, and he was prosecuted. However, the cases were dismissed by the same Court, for medical reasons (vascular dementia), in July 2002. Shortly after the verdict, Pinochet resigned from the Senate and lived quietly. He rarely made public appearances and was notably absent from the events marking the 30th anniversary of the coup on September 11, 2003. Almost two years after his resignation, on May 28, 2004, the Court of Appeals voted 14 to 9 to revoke Pinochet's dementia status and, consequently, his immunity from prosecution. In arguing their case, the prosecution presented a recent television interview Pinochet had given for a Miami-based television network. The judges found that the interview raised doubts about the mental incapacity of Pinochet.

On August 26, 2004, in a 9 to 8 vote, the Supreme Court confirmed the decision that Pinochet should lose his senatorial immunity from prosecution. On December 2, 2004, the Santiago Appeals Court stripped Pinochet of immunity from prosecution over the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats, his predecessor as Army Commander-in-Chief, who was killed by a car bomb during exile in Argentina. On December 13, 2004, Judge Juan Guzmán placed Pinochet under house arrest and indicted him over the disappearance of nine opposition activists and the killing of one of them during his regime. On March 24, 2005, the Supreme Court reversed the Santiago Appeals Court ruling in the Carlos Prats case, and affirmed Pinochet's immunity in that particular case. In another case involving the killing of 119 dissidents, the Supreme Court decided to strip Pinochet of his immunity in a ruling issued on September 14, 2005.[1] The following day he was acquitted of the human rights case due to his ill health. Late in November of 2005, he was deemed fit to stand trial by the Chilean Supreme Court and was indicted on human rights, for the disappearance of six dissidents arrested by Chile's security services in late 1974, and again placed under house arrest, on the eve of his 90th birthday. (See Operation Colombo.)

The Chilean Supreme Court lifted Pinochet's immunity concerning the Villa Grimaldi case in September 2006 ^[1]

[edit] Tax fraud and foreign bank accounts

A year long U.S. Senate investigatory committee released a report about Riggs Bank on July 15, 2004, which had solicited Pinochet and controlled between USD $4 million and $8 million of his assets. According to the report, Riggs participated in money laundering for Pinochet, setting up offshore shell corporations (referring to Pinochet as only "a former public official"), and hiding his accounts from regulatory agencies. The report said the violations were "symptomatic of uneven and, at times, ineffective enforcement by all federal bank regulators, of bank compliance with their anti-money-laundering obligations." Five days later, a Chilean court formally opened an investigation into Pinochet's finances for the first time, on allegations of fraud, misappropriation of funds, and bribery. Then, a few hours later, the state prosecutor, Chile's State Defense Council (Consejo de Defensa del Estado), presented a second request for the same judge to investigate Pinochet's assets, but without directly accusing him of crimes. On October 1, 2004, Chile's Internal Revenue Service ("Servicio de Impuestos Internos") filed a lawsuit against Pinochet, accusing him of fraud and tax evasion, for the amount of USD $3.6 million in investment accounts at Riggs between 1996 and 2002. Pinochet could face fines totaling 300 percent of the amount owed, and prison time, if convicted. Aside from the legal ramifications, this evidence of financial impropiety has severely embarrassed Pinochet. According to the State Defense Council, his hidden assets could never have been acquired solely on the basis of his salary as President, Chief of the Armed Forces, and Life Senator. Late in November of 2005, he was deemed fit to stand trial by the Chilean Supreme Court and was indicted and put under house arrest on tax fraud and passport forgery charges but was released on bail; however, he remained under house arrest due to unrelated human rights charges.

This tax fraud filing, related to Pinochet's and his family secret bank accounts in United States and in Caraïbs islands, for an amount of 27 millions dollars, shocked the Chilean public opinion more than the accusations of criminal activities. Ninety percent of these funds would have been raised between 1990 and 1998, when Pinochet was chief of the Chilean armies, and would essentially have come from weapons traffic (when purchasing Belgian 'Mirage' air-fighters in 1994, Dutch 'Léopard' tanks, Swiss 'Mowag' tanks or by illegal sales of weapons to Croatia, in the middle of the Balkans war.) General Pinochet would owe to the Chilean tax administration a total of $16.5 million. In that case Pinochet's immunity was set off by the Appeal Court of Santiago, and this was confirmed by the Supreme court on October 19, 2005. The judiciary procedure may eventually lead to a trial for Pinochet, his wife Lucia Hiriart and one of his sons, Marco Antonio Pinochet, sued for complicity. Judge Juan Guzman Tapia -- sometimes called "Pinochet's hunter" -- remains skeptic on the probability of a trial, either for human rights violations or for fiscal fraud. However, some medical examinations reported that the physical and mental health condition of the former Chilean dictator would allow him to be judged. On November 23, 2005, judge Carlos Cerda charged Pinochet for fiscal fraud and ordered his arrest. Pinochet was freed under caution, as following the judgment minutes, "his freedom did not represent a danger for the security of the society", but it is the fourth time in seven years that Augusto Pinochet is indicted and charged for illegal behavior.

On 23 February 2006 Augusto Pinochet's children Lucía, Jacqueline, Marco Antonio, Jacqueline and Verónica Pinochet; Augusto Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart; a daughter-in-law; and Pinochet's personal secretary were indicted on charges of tax fraud, including failing to declare bank accounts overseas, and using false passports. Lucía flew to the US, but was detained and returned to Argentina, her country of departure, after attempting unsuccessfully to claim political asylum[2].

[edit] Current allegations

In 2006, General Manuel Contreras, head of the Chilean secret police DINA under Pinochet, alleged in testimony sent to Judge Claudio Pavez that Pinochet and his son Marco Antonio Pinochet were involved in the clandestine production of chemical and biological weapons, and the sale and trafficking of cocaine. These allegations are currently being investigated by the Chilean courts. [3]

On September 9, 2006, Pinochet was stripped of his immunity by the Chilean Supreme Court. Judge Alejandro Madrid will thus be able to indict him for the kidnapping and torture at Villa Grimaldi.^[2]

On October 30, 2006, Pinochet was charged with 36 counts of kidnapping, 23 counts of torture, and one of murder for the torture and disappearance of opponents of his regime at Villa Grimaldi. He was deemed fit to stand trial and placed under house arrest.