One day before his 90th birthday, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was under house arrest today and facing tax fraud and human rights charges in his toughest legal situation yet.
Pinochet was placed under house arrest and charged with tax fraud, forging passports and documents, and incomplete reporting of his assets in a case involving an estimated $27 million hid in foreign bank accounts.
Pinochet was about to pay bail in the tax fraud case today when a separate judge put him back under house arrest and charged him in seven disappearances that are part of a 1974 human rights case known as Operation Colombo.
Judge Victor Montiglio's ruling said Pinochet should face trial in seven "permanent kidnappings," the term Chile's legal system uses for people who were arrested by state forces and are presumed dead but whose bodies were never found.
Earlier, a court source said that the charges were in three disappearances.
"Without a doubt, this is the worst birthday he could have from a judicial standpoint, this is by far the most delicate situation he's gone through," political scientist Ricardo Israel said.
Israel said the bank accounts case has moved much more rapidly than previous cases against Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990, an era when 3,000 people died in political violence and tens of thousands more were tortured or exiled.
"But that doesn't mean there'll be a rapid conviction. His health problems will probably get worse," Israel said.