Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

CHILE: Pinochet Stripped of Immunity – Again

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Oct 12 2006 (IPS) - The Santiago Court of Appeals decided Thursday to lift former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s immunity from prosecution in the case involving the kidnapping of Eugenio Berríos, a chemist whose body turned up on a beach in Uruguay in 1995.

The verdict will allow Judge Alejandro Madrid, presiding over the case, to question the 90-year-old Pinochet and eventually rule on his alleged participation in the kidnapping of the former agent of the 1973-1990 dictatorship’s secret police (DINA).

However, the decision must first be upheld by the Supreme Court.

Berríos was secretly whisked out of Chile in October 1991 to prevent him from testifying in a case involving the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier, perpetrated by DINA in Washington DC. Letelier had served as foreign minister under socialist president Salvador Allende (1970-1973), who was overthrown by Pinochet.

The chemist’s body, with two bullet wounds to the head, was discovered on a beach near Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1995. The DINA agent was last seen on Nov. 15, 1992, when he entered a police station in the resort town of Parque del Plata, near the capital. He was taken from the station by colonel Tomás Casella and lieutenant colonel Eduardo Radaelli.

Both these members of the Uruguayan armed forces, together with colonel Wellington Sarli, were extradited to Chile in April this year at Judge Madrid’s request, on charges of illegal association and kidnapping. The three officers were granted bail of one million pesos (1,900 dollars) on Sep. 13.

Madrid has also indicted several former members of Chilean military intelligence, whose testimony indicated that Pinochet had participated in those events.

In Thursday’s decision, the Court of Appeals took into special consideration the testimony of the former director of military intelligence, retired general Hernán Ramírez, who testified that Pinochet had personally given the order to have Berríos removed from Chile.

Forensic experts in Uruguay established that Berríos was killed in late1992 or early 1993. In February 1993, Pinochet visited Uruguay as army chief, a post he held until 1998.

Meanwhile, the former dictator’s defence lawyers said there was no evidence to prove their client’s participation in these events.

In the course of his work at DINA, Berríos specialised in manufacturing chemical weapons, including sarin gas.

In July this year former DINA director Manuel Contreras said Berríos had also been processing cocaine in the army’s Chemical Complex, together with one of Pinochet’s five children, Marco Antonio, and a Chilean entrepreneur of Syrian descent, Edgardo Bathich.

According to Contreras, the profits from trafficking cocaine is the explanation for the large fortune amassed by Pinochet. The origins of this fortune, discovered in 2004, are currently being investigated by Judge Carlos Cerda in what is known as the “Riggs case”, for the name of the U.S. bank where Pinochet’s family and cronies had secret accounts.

On Aug. 18, the Supreme Court ratified an earlier decision to strip Pinochet of immunity for the charges of misappropriation of public funds during the dictatorship and the first few years of democracy, when he was still commander in chief of the army.

Judge Madrid is also investigating the death of former Chilean president Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964-1970), a leading opponent of the Pinochet dictatorship, who died in January 1982 from mysterious post-operative complications.

The Frei family, represented by lawyer Álvaro Varela, say Berríos was involved in an alleged deliberate toxic infection of the ex-president during a hernia operation he underwent in November 1981 in a Santiago clinic.

After what was considered a routine operation, Frei Montalva contracted an infection. He was operated on again, but died on Jan. 22, 1982.

In August, the surgeon who carried out the first operation, Augusto Larrain, said that there had been foul play in the former Christian Democratic president’s death.

“It was absolutely clear to me that there was a local chemical reaction. Something was causing a local inflammation,” the surgeon said. He thought a chemical agent might have been introduced via one of the compresses applied after the surgery.

Relatives of the late President Frei Montalva, among them his son Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, another former president of Chile (1994-2000) and current speaker of the Senate, believe their father was murdered, and suspect that it was ordered by Pinochet.

Sources say Judge Madrid may soon request the lifting of Pinochet’s immunity in this case as well.

Varela welcomed the Appeals Court decision Thursday and said he was confident that it would be ratified by the Supreme Court, because of the weight of the evidence.

The lawyer said “Pinochet is directly involved in the crimes committed against Eugenio Berríos, and the most serious thing, the key question, is: What did Eugenio Berríos mean to Pinochet?”

Berríos’ kidnapping and murder is considered to be one of the last actions of Operation Condor, in which the military dictatorships ruling Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s worked in coordination to pursue, “disappear” and murder opponents of the de facto regimes.

On Tuesday, Pinochet was also stripped of immunity to face charges in 27 cases of torture and 32 forced disappearances that took place in Villa Grimaldi, a notorious detention and torture centre during the dictatorship.

Although the former dictator has lost the immunity from prosecution that he enjoys as a former president in several cases linked to corruption and crimes against humanity (at least 3,000 people were “disappeared” and killed by his regime, and tens of thousands were tortured), he has never been sentenced.