RIGHTS-CHILE: Court Paves Way for Pinochet’s Trial

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Jun 6 2000 (IPS) - The Santiago Appeals Court officially handed down Monday a ruling ordering that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet be stripped of his immunity from prosecution, thus paving the way for his trial in connection with human rights violations committed in the first months of his 1973-90 de facto regime.

The 84-year-old former dictator’s defence attorneys have five days to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The official announcement of the court decision – which came as no surprise, as it had been “leaked” two weeks ago – was greeted enthusiastically by the Group of Relatives of the Detained- Disappeared (AFDD) and was labelled “historic” by human rights lawyers.

In the majority decision, 13 of the judges sitting on the appeals court stated that there was a well-founded presumption, based on which Pinochet could be accused as the “intellectual author” of 19 kidnappings committed in 1973 by a special military mission known as the “caravan of death.”

The nine judges who wrote up the minority opinion argued in favour of upholding Pinochet’s immunity from prosecution, which he enjoys as a life senator, stating that there was no evidence substantiating suspicions that Pinochet was directly responsible for the disappearances, nor guarantees of a fair trial, given his supposedly frail state of health.

But “the reasons cited by the minority opinion did not deny the existence” of the human rights abuses in question, said laywer Hugo Gutiérrez, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case involving the “caravan of death”, which Judge Juan Guzmán began to investigate in 1998.

The majority ruling detailed how the military mission ordered by Pinochet to “expedite” trials of leftists arrested after the Sep 11, 1973 coup illegally removed 19 detainees from detention centres in three Chilean cities in October of that year.

The fact that the 19 individuals in question never again appeared, dead or alive, led Guzmán to label the disappearances ongoing kidnappings, which made it possible for him to elude the 1978 amnesty law decreed by Pinochet to let members of the military off the hook.

Last year, the judge ordered legal proceedings against General Sergio Arellano and other officers implicated in the military mission. Charges were brought against Pinochet in connection with the case in March.

The judge, who is investigating 104 lawsuits against the former de facto ruler, demanded the stripping of Pinochet’s parliamentary immunity only in connection with the “caravan of death”.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides regarding Pinochet’s immunity from prosecution will play a key role in the future of the former dictator, who spent 503 days under house arrest in London, from October 1998 to last March.

Pinochet was arrested in London on the basis of a warrant issued by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón, who sought his extradition to Madrid. But British Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered the elderly former army chief’s release on humanitarian grounds.

Pinochet’s defence lawyers could argue before the Supreme Court that their client is neither mentally nor physically fit to stand trial.

The army, which was headed by Pinochet from August 1973 to March 1998, declined to comment on the appeals court ruling.

The centre-left coalition government of Ricardo Lagos, meanwhile, insisted that the independence of the justice system be respected. “This is a judicial process, and thus the only thing we expect is for all sectors to respect the decisions of the courts,” said the minister of the general secretariat of the government, Claudio Huepe.

Human rights lawyer and parliamentary Deputy Juan Bustos – of Lagos’ co-governing Socialist Party – termed the appeals court verdict “historic,” as did Gutiérrez, who said the ruling “demonstrates the effectiveness of the state’s regulatory powers.”

“The grounds on which the ruling is based are the existence of facts that demonstrate that Pinochet was somehow responsible as the author, accomplice or abettor of the crimes of the so-called caravan of death,” said Gutiérrez, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Viviana Díaz, the head of the AFDD rights group, said she hoped the Supreme Court would uphold the appeals court ruling and allow Pinochet to be brought to trial.

“The facts are overwhelming: the crimes were committed in our country; our relatives were left completely defenceless; and today, 26 years on, justice has begun to be done by them,” said Díaz.

Parliamentary Deputy Alberto Cardemil, the president of the right-wing National Renovation Party (PRN), who served as a deputy minister in the de facto government of Pinochet, said the ruling did not “enhance” the dignity of the appeals court, but urged everyone alike to respect the decisions taken by the justice system.

The right-wing opposition, comprised of the PRN and the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), is reportedly willing to negotiate key constitutional reforms – seen as crucial for completing Chile’s transition to democracy – in exchange for a law that would dismiss once and for all any cases implicating the military in human rights abuses committed during the dictatorship.

Lagos, however, has rejected the idea.

The followers of the former dictator, grouped in the Pinochet Foundation and the ‘Movimiento Vitalicio Augusto Pinochet’, are preparing events to declare their support for the elderly retired general and protest what they term “the Marxist vengeance” against the army.

The organisations are planning a special event on Wednesday, the Day of the Infantry, to which the former dictator belonged, and which designated him the “first infantryman of the fatherland.”