Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was charged today with tax fraud, passport forgery and other crimes related to an estimated $27 million stashed in secret bank accounts under false names.
Judge Carlos Cerda, who is also the prosecutor on the case, issued the indictment, put Pinochet under house arrest, and set bail at $23,000. Additional charges include using false documents and incomplete statement of assets.
Pinochet, who will turn 90 on Friday, has been indicted in two human rights cases in the last five years, but the cases were thrown out by courts which ruled that his mild dementia, caused by frequent mini-strokes, made him unfit to face trial.
"Today (he's charged with) economic crimes, let's hope that tomorrow it's for the genocide that took place during 17 years of dictatorship," Lorena Pizarro, president of one of Chile's biggest human rights groups, told reporters at the Santiago tribunal building.
Pinochet recently underwent physical and psychiatric exams to see whether he was well enough to face a criminal process and it is not clear whether his defense will be able to block the new charges on health grounds.
The indictment says Pinochet evaded some $2.4 million in taxes between 1980 and 2004.
Pinochet paid $2 million back taxes earlier this year and says he is innocent of wrongdoing. His wife and youngest son are out on bail after they were arrested in August and charged as accomplices in tax evasion and using false passports to help move the money among the bank accounts.