Pinochet charged in human rights case

SANTIAGO, Chile - Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has been indicted for the second time in two days, this time for three disappearances that are a part of a 1974 human rights case.

The formal charges were for the crime of "permanent kidnappings," which in Chile's legal system refers to people who were arrested by state forces and are presumed dead but whose bodies have never been found.

Judge Victor Montiglio, who is also the prosecutor in the case, issued the charges and put Pinochet under house arrest.

Pinochet, who will turn 90 on Friday, had just been granted bail in another case.

Yesterday, he was charged with tax fraud, passport forgery, using false documents and incomplete reporting of his assets in a separate case involving an estimated US$28 million he hid in foreign bank accounts.

Over the last five years, Pinochet was charged in two other human rights cases, but they were thrown out by courts who ruled that his mild dementia, caused by frequent mini-strokes, made him unfit to face trial.

Human rights lawyers say 119 leftists were taken prisoner by Chile's secret police and killed in 1974 in the case that is now known as Operation Colombo. They say the Pinochet regime planted fake news stories in 1975 in Argentina and Brazil alleging the dissidents had died fighting among themselves.

Pinochet, who led a 1973 military coup that launched his 17-year dictatorship, lost his immunity from prosecution in Operation Colombo in September. The Supreme Court at that time said he could face criminal charges related to 15 of the disappeared people in the case.

More than 3,000 people died in political violence during Pinochet's 1973-90 rule, when tens of thousands more were tortured or exiled.

- REUTERS