CHILE’S FORMER DICTATOR INVESTIGATED FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING

Judge Adds Another Three Disappearances To List of Indictments Against Pinochet

Judge Víctor Montiglio charged former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet with three new counts of “disappearing” political activists in the Operation Colombo investigation Monday. Meanwhile, Judge Carlos Cerda, in charge of the Riggs Bank case, met with detectives from Chile’s Anti-Narcotics division to investigate possible links between the dictator’s fortune and drug trafficking operations.

Judge Cerda was briefed by Patricio Bascuñán of the Carbineros Investigations Police in the ongoing investigation of Edgardo Bathich, a suspected weapons and drug trafficker with links to Gen. Pinochet and his oldest son Augusto Jr. Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that part of Pinochet’s secret fortune came from drug-running.

Gen. Pinochet is accused of laundering more than US$27 million in bribes and illegal kickbacks from the sale of military weaponry while he was commander in chief of Chile’s armed forces. He was arrested and released on bail for charges in the Riggs Bank case on Nov. 23 but was placed under house arrest the following day by Judge Montiglio in the Operation Colombo case (ST, Nov. 28).

Prosecutors in that case originally tried to indict Gen. Pinochet on 15 counts of disappearing political detainees, but Judge Montiglio has so far only approved nine of those counts while rejecting another four because of previous legal rulings. Authorities believe Pinochet was the mastermind behind a 1975 operation between the military regimes of Chile, Argentina, and Brazil to cover-up the execution of 119 members of political opposition groups.

Chilean proscutors have been trying to indict Pinochet for these murders for several years, but have never managed to clear all of the legal hurdles necessary to prosecute the former head of state. However, following the Nov. 9 ruling that Pinochet was mentally and physically capable of standing trial, judges in the two cases have brought a total of 13 different criminal charges against the former dictator.

The charges are: one count of falsifying passports, one count of falsifying a 1989 statement of personal assests, one count of falsifying government documents in 2002, one count of tax evasion, and 9 counts of “disappearing” political detainees.

On top of these charges, investigations continue in the Croatia arms case and the Huber murder investigation. The first is a civilian inquiry into a 1991 illegal weapons shipment to Croatia during the Balkan War, while the second is a military investigation into the 1992 murder of Col. Gerardo Huber, an employee of Chile’s Army Weapons Factory (FAMAE) involved in the Croatia arms deal.

Judge Claudio Pavez, lead investigator in the Huber murder case, met Tuesday with Gen. Pinochet in his Santiago home to question the general about his links to the dead man. Authorities believe Huber was murdered because of testimony he gave in the original 1992 Croatia arms investigation implicating Capt. Pedro Araya and Gen. Carlos Krumm, both military officials working for FAMAE in the early 1990s.

Capt. Araya was sentenced to five years in jail for his role in the Croatia arms sale in August, but was released from prison when the case was reopened on Oct. 18. In Araya’s court testimony, he implicated seven high-ranking Chilean generals, including then Commander in Chief Gen. Augusto Pinochet (ST, Oct. 27). None of the generals were found guilty, one of the main reasons cited in a military court’s unanimous decision to reopen the case.