Chile's Supreme Court reinstates Pinochet's immunity

Chile's Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated the immunity of former dictator Augusto Pinochet for his involvement in the murder of former army commander Carlos Prats in Argentina.

The top tribunal voted 15-4 to reverse a previous ruling by the Court of Appeals of Santiago to strip 89-year-old Pinochet of the immunity he enjoyed as ex-president and ex-senator.

The judges who voted to retain Pinochet's immunity insisted thematter had been decided by Chilean tribunals which had previously rejected the petition by an Argentine court to eliminate Pinochet's immunity in the same case.

On November 30, 1974, Prats, former commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, and his wife Sofia Curthbert were killed by a car bomb in Buenos Aires, in an attack attributed to Pinochet.

Former Chilean secret police agent Enrique Arancibia is servinga life sentence in Argentina for his role in the murdering of Prats, who was Pinochet's predecessor as the army chief and opposed the 1973 coup which brought Pinochet to power.

However, Thursday's favorable ruling brought no end to Pinochet's legal troubles, as he is currently being tried in the case known as the Operation Condor, a joint plan developed by military regimes in South America to eliminate dissidents in the 1970s and 1980s.

In addition, another judge is investigating the multi-million dollar bank accounts held secretly by Pinochet in the United States. The courts have frozen his assets and are investigating him for tax evasion and tax fraud.

The former ruler also faces more than 200 criminal suits stemming from the massive human rights abuses during his 1973-1990 dictatorship.

In each individual case against the former strongman, the Supreme Court has to rule on the immunity issue.

Source: Xinhua