Posted on 11/25/2005 6:14:02 AM PST by Borges
Gen Pinochet has been placed under house arrest in Santiago Former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet is spending his 90th birthday under house arrest after being indicted for the second time in 48 hours. The latest charges centre on the disappearance of dissidents in 1975 in what was known as Operation Colombo.
Gen Pinochet had just been freed on bail after being charged on Wednesday with tax evasion and passport fraud.
His lawyer Pablo Rodriguez defended the ex-ruler as a man who had devoted his life to leading Chile "forward".
More than 3,000 people were killed when he was in power from 1973 to 1990.
Two earlier human rights cases collapsed after Gen Pinochet was deemed too ill to face prosecution.
The BBC's Hannah Hennessey reports from Santiago that the general had celebrated his 80th birthday surrounded by politicians, businessmen and generals.
Now he will spend his 90th birthday at home in Santiago, facing what political analysts are calling his toughest legal challenge yet, she adds.
'Fit for trial'
In the latest case, Judge Victor Montiglio charged Gen Pinochet in connection with the kidnapping of at least three dissidents by the former military ruler's security services.
The charge is of "permanent kidnappings", meaning that the bodies of the victims, who are presumed dead, have never been found.
The judge is said to have paid a visit to Gen Pinochet at his Santiago mansion to inform him personally of the charges.
At least 119 people are alleged to have been abducted by state forces and later killed in the 1975 secret operation.
Gen Pinochet had his legal immunity stripped in this case after being found fit to stand trial in September.
News of his arrest came moments after his released on bail in the tax evasion and fraud case.
The charges came after investigations into secret funds being held in accounts abroad.
According to the indictment, Gen Pinochet evaded $2.4m (£1.4m) in taxes between 1980 and 2004.
I didn't realize that he was still alive.
Great headline - how old would he be if he was under double-secret probation instead of detention?
Just what I was thinking!
Geriatric Spanish-speaking military dictator ping!
But was it a left turn or a right turn?
Inquiring minds need to know.
---A) Not nearly enough--
FREE PINOCHET !
I'm with you. If Pinochet hadn't taken over, Chile would be another third-world S**T hole like most of the rest of Latin America.
I laugh at the stupid article saying he is confined to his, "Mansion". For a year, I lived two houses from his place in Santiago and believe me, his place isn't a mansion...very well guarded yes, but hardly a mansion.
One thing the MME never says about the 3,000 who died while he was in charge....THIS WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A CIVIL WAR!!!
In similar conflicts 3,000 would die in the first hour of battle.
I am going home for the weekend so and wont be able to reply to the many replies I will get. So you all have a good one.
He turned power back over to a civilain democratic government after stopping a commie takeover with relatively little shedding of blood. He scores extremely low on both the bloodthirsty and tyrant scale - the prosecution of him is being driven by vengeful lefties. I need to go get me a Pinochet T-shirt made - ala the Che Guevara one.
The media never tells the truth about Gen. Pinochet and his fight to keep the country free from evil (in other words, becoming just another beachhead for Marxist tyranny and a Soviet satellite). What a sick and twisted world we live in when psychotic evil monsters like Castro, Chavez, et al are "worshipped" by media sycophants, so-called "educators", and other political stooges and are allowed to roam free without any sort of accountability for their crimes against humanity, but a FREEDOM-FIGHTER like Gen. Pinochet is treated like a criminal and the lowest of human debris. At least when he passes on and has to account for his actions, he can stand tall and say he stood up to and defeated Godless evil... something Castro, Chavez, U.S. Congressional Democrats and the international media worked so hard to proliferate.
Exactly right...the press never points out that Allende was elected with 31% of the vote because of multi-party splits, but that doesn't stop the media down here from constantly cannonizing Allende...You can't go in a bookstore in Santiago without being overwhelmed by dozens of books idolizing Allende and the devout commie poet of questionable talent, Pablo Naruda.
Also, when General Pinochet lost the election the split was 43-47%, which tells me that almost half the people in Chile wanted him to continue. I talked to people who said the only reason they didn't vote for him was anoter 6-years would have kept him in power for 25-years, and many people balked at that scenario.
Great post!
As an aside, I lived in Santiago for 1-year, (hated the place), and lived on a street two houses from the General's home. The street was in the safest neighborhood in all of South America.
Shhh!
You're letting "facts" cloud your judgment.
PINOCHET IS TEH EVIL!!
THE EVIL, I TELL YOU!
Almost as bad as BOOOOSH!
It's good that harmless, nonagenarians-who exert no political influence whatsoever-are under firm lock and key, while utterly ruthless, psychopathic despots like Than Shwe, Kim Jong-Il, Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro, Bashar Assad, the nuclearized mullahs in the IRI and the military gerontocracy in Red China run roughshod over human rights.
(Sarcasm implied.)
Very well put!
You're thinking of Geppetto - I think he died a few years back. Took the Cricket with him in a murder-suicide.
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