CHILE: Chilean authorities arrest members of Pinochet family in Riggs bank case

The widow and five children of late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were arrested on Thursday (October 4) as part of an investigation into allegations he stole $27 million of public funds and hid it in foreign banks. Judge Carlos Cerda also ordered the arrest of a further 17 people including retired military officers from the Pinochet era, friends, associates and the former leader's personal secretary, court officials said. The center-left government described the arrests as a strictly judicial decision. "A family can never be exempt from the penal right. Family members of the General Pinochet family have been processed with today's date, because they were accredited in the tribunal's concept with the background that exists indicating the offense of embezzlement of public funds. There are confirmed presumptions, also justified in the resolution. These people, who are relatives of Augusto Jose Ramon Pinochet Ugarte, rest in peace, have participated in this crime," Cerda told reporters. Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990, died in December last year at age 91 without ever being brought to trial to face embezzlement and human rights charges. He left behind a widow, Lucia Hiriart, now 84, and five children: Augusto, Lucia, Marco Antonio, Jaqueline and Veronica. "Nothing can be gained for charging Lucia Hiriart Pinochet with a crime as well as General Pinochet's children. This contradicts everything the appellate courts had resolved when it cancelled these proceedings," said Pinochet's family lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez. The year before he died Pinochet was charged with tax evasion linked to the estimated $27 million. He was also being investigated for fraud and embezzlement related to that money, which was frozen pending court cases. The fraud allegations seriously tarnished Pinochet's image -- even among those who supported him politically. Prosecutors have always alleged that his wider family benefited from the alleged fraud and should be tried. Pinochet, the most notorious of the military leaders who dominated South America through much of the Cold War, grabbed power in a U.S.-supported coup against socialist President Salvador Allende. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, said that nobody can assume that they are above the laws in Chile. "Nobody in Chile can believe that justice cannot be met or that they are immune to the system, so I believe that we should be calm and wait for the outcome, but I think that it's valid that there is justice and that it has a role to play." Soon after the coup Pinochet's secret police began torturing and killing leftists and dissidents and his rule eventually became synonymous with human rights abuses. More than 3,000 people died in political violence during the dictatorship. Some 28,000 people were tortured and hundreds of thousands of Chileans went into exile. Among the victims of the dictatorship was Chile's current President Michelle Bachelet, whose father died after being tortured in a Pinochet prison and who herself went into exile after being arrested and held in a torture center.

ITN Source | October 5, 2007

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