Augusto Pinochet

General Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte{{an|Name}} (born November 25, 1915) was head of the military government that ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990. He came to power in a violent coup that deposed Salvador Allende, a Marxist physician who had become the first Socialist to be elected President of Chile. The coup ended a period of strained relations between the United States?which had actively sought Allende's removal?and the South American country, and allowed Pinochet to implement profound neoliberal economic reforms and, at the same time, to commit extensive human rights violations, both at home and abroad.

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 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 made to a Miami-based television network. The judges found that the interview raised doubts about the mental incapacity of Pinochet.

Related Topics:
August 8 - 2000 - Supreme Court of Justice - Dementia - September 11 - 2003 - May 28 - 2004 - Miami

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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. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4246780.stm

Related Topics:
August 26 - 2004 - December 2 - Carlos Prats - December 13 - Judge - Juan Guzmán - March 24 - 2005 - September 14

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The Pinochet case has been a landmark in international law, proving that diplomatic immunity may be overridden in cases involving the gross breach of customary and international law.

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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 only as "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.

Related Topics:
U.S. Senate - Riggs Bank - July 15 - 2004 - Money laundering - Shell corporations - State Defense Council - October 1

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