Posted on 12/30/2005 10:44:25 AM PST by NormsRevenge
SANTIAGO, Chile - Former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was stripped of his legal immunity Friday to face charges of diverting public funds to personal bank accounts.
Judge Juan Escobar, president of the Santiago Court of Appeals, said his tribunal voted 21-3 to remove the immunity Pinochet enjoys as a former president.
Friday's decision is part of a wider corruption-related legal process in which Pinochet also lost immunity against charges of tax evasion and secret overseas bank accounts totaling as much as $28 million. A person with legal immunity must be stripped of it separately in each case.
The ruling adds to Pinochet's already difficult legal situation. The 90-year-old was indicted and has been under house arrest since Nov. 24 for his alleged responsibility in the killing and disappearance of nine dissidents in the early years of his 1973-90 dictatorship.
In the new case, Judge Carlos Cerda said Pinochet diverted $2 million from the presidential office to personal accounts abroad.
Pinochet's lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez, was expected to appeal Friday's ruling.
The day before, Rodriguez denied the charges of diverting of funds, saying that Pinochet was owed $340,000 for government expenses he had paid for with his personal money.
Cerda cannot bring Pinochet to trial unless the Supreme Court upholds the lower court's ruling. The top court has already blocked efforts to try Pinochet four times, saying his health does not allow him to stand trial. Pinochet suffers from a mild dementia, has had several strokes, suffers from diabetes and arthritis and has a pacemaker.
Rodriguez said he will again cite health reasons in his appeal.
However, a team of court-appointed doctors who examined Pinochet in October said his health problems were not serious enough to prevent his trial.
While Pinochet has for years battled charges stemming from human rights abuses during his long rule, this year was the first time money and corruption charges were brought against him. In addition to tax evasion charges, he is also accused of using false passports to open bank accounts abroad.
Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart, and their younger son, Marco Antonio, are also indicted as accomplices in the tax evasion.
Ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet is seen in Santiago in a March 10, 1998 file photo. A Chilean court stripped Pinochet of immunity from prosecution on Wednesday so that he can face new human rights charges in 29 cases of people who disappeared during his 17-year rule and are presumed dead. (Rickey Rogers/Reuters)
They're going to teach that 90-year-old Pinochet a lesson he'll never forget. Uh, well, maybe he won't forget before brunch...
Further proof of the renewed leftward drift in Latin America. If we do not start treating Latin America as we did in the Cold War, we could soon see ourself shutout for the sake of the Chicoms.
Deja Vu? I could have sworn reading this same basic headline every few months for the past several years.
This is an outrage.
Let this be a lesson to any right wing dictator who agrees to step down and allow free elections, kill all the leftists first.
If Pinochet was 1% as brutal as the Marxists who are prosecuting him, their would not have been a single on of them left alive, to later charge him with anything.
Save your country, kill its enemies -- then be hounded by the press and the leftists for the rest of your life.
No good deed goes unpunished.
The more I read about Allende, the more I realize Pinochete did the right thing.
What's also ridiculous is this $2M business.
They are basically alleging that he diverted an average of $117,000 a year to his personal bank account.
Less, if you subtract compound interest over that period - less than $100,000 a year.
This is ridiculous.
If Pinochet were really committing malfeasance, he was in a position to steal millions and millions every year.
What dictator, intent on stuffing his pockets at public expense, would steal such tiny amounts?
What he was doing was paying himself a Presidential salary even though he was not actually elected President, and in the meantime he also drew his military salary/pension concurrently.
One may argue as to (1) whether he was actually doing two separate jobs, both of which had attached salaries and (2) whether he was legally allowed to draw a President's salary.
They are stripping him of immunity for this.
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