CHILE: Chile's Supreme Court has stripped former dictator Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution in one notorious human rights case, raising hopes of victims that he may finally face trial for abuses during his 17-year regime.
Yesterday's ruling upheld a lower court decision in May that removed the immunity from prosecution which Mr Pinochet (88) received as a former head of state. That court said the former general could be charged in connection with the disappearance of 19 people in the mid-1970s whose bodies have never been found.
The ruling is the latest in six years of back-and-forth court decisions in hundreds of different human rights cases which accuse Pinochet of ordering secret police to kidnap, torture and kill leftists.
Mr Pinochet took power in a coup in 1973 and at least 3,000 people were killed during his rule. He has been out of office since 1990, but has remained untouchable in the courts.
"We're happy and we're going to keep pushing," Ms Lorena Pizarro, president of the association of relatives of the disappeared, said.
The Supreme Court removed his immunity once before, in 2001, raising huge expectations, but his defence successfully argued that his mild dementia made him unfit to stand trial. His lawyers will present that defence again, but human rights lawyers say it will be tougher this time because Mr Pinochet gave a lucid interview to a Miami television station in December.
Public opinion has also shifted further against him since July, when a US Senate committee's report revealed that he held up to $8 million in secret off-shore bank accounts.