CHILE: Augusto Pinochet, eldest son of the former dictator, has been arrested on charges of tax avoidance to do with false billing of motor vehicles.
Pinochet jnr, a former army captain and an employee in New York of the Central Bank of Chile, has had several encounters with the law but has hitherto been able to avoid any guilty verdict. In 1990 he was at the centre of accusations of corruption linked to his role as a middle man in the sale of SIG Valmoval, a Chilean affiliate of a Swiss manufacturer of rifles, to the Chilean army. He received three cheques to the value of 971.9 million Chilean pesos (some € 3 million) in what became known as the Pinocheques affair. In 1991, members of the Chilean congress called for an investigation but this was dropped after Pinochet ordered a grade one military alert and threatened to put the First Division of the army onto the streets of Santiago.
He has been short of money since he separated from his wife Verónica to whom he had made over most of his assets. He was arrested and questioned on Wednesday.