Pinochet Bats .500 in Court

Chile’s former dictator General Augusto Pinochet, had mixed results in court this week. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court in a 10 to 6 vote gave the go-ahead for Pinochet’s prosecution on human rights crimes in the Operation Colombo case. But twenty-four hours later a panel of Supreme Court justices ruled Pinochet was not criminally responsible in another human rights crimes case; known as Operation Condor.

In Operation Colombo, Pinochet is charged with ordering the 1975 murder, disappearance and cover up in Argentina and Brazil of 119 opponents to his regime. Following the murders and disappearances Chile’s secret police with the help of Argentine and Brazilian security forces planted news stories saying the opponents had died in internal struggles for power. These stories were soon picked up by Chile’s then tightly controlled media.

But today, these same justices for health reasons absolved Pinochet of his involvement in Operation Condor.

Operation Condor was a coordinated security services operation that persecuted killed and disappeared opponents to the six military dictatorships -Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay- of South America.

Published press reports and according archival records found in Paraguay -the so-called archives of terror- point to Pinochet as the brains behind the terror network that stretched from Santiago to the streets of Washington.

Operation Condor began at a Santiago meeting on November 25, 1975.

In 1976 in Washington’s embassy row, Operation Condor operatives exploded a car driven by Chilean opposition leader and deposed President Salvador Allende’s minister Orlando Letelier and his U.S. associate Ronnie Moffit.

The Supreme Court’s odd decisions angered plaintiff lawyer, Eduardo Contreras. He said the ruling “tarnishes the image of the country with the international community.”

This peculiar decision contradicts court findings in Argentina, Spain and Italy, that have demanded Pinochet's extradition as the mastermind behind Operation Condor.

Pinochet faces another human rights crimes case, the Caravan of Death. If today’s decision is any indication to what may happen Pinochet will also be exonerated in the Caravan of Death case due to his diminished mental capacity.

All seems to indicate the only case that may actually convict Pinochet is a case of tax fraud and elicit enrichment. Earlier this year, a U.S. Senate investigation found Pinochet had millions of dollars stashed away in a number of secret bank accounts at Washington's Riggs Bank.

The findings opened a new case for illicit enrichment and tax fraud. The judge prosecuting the case, Sergio Muñoz is about to rule in the case.

But what may be a case pre-empting any potential criminal charge against Pinochet, is the decision this week of Chilean President Ricardo Lagos to name judge Muñoz, to occupy a vacancy in the Supreme Court.

If one does not believe in conspiracy theories, all indications point to a silent pact between the Executive Branch and judiciary to end all pending prosecutions against Pinochet.

It is no wonder then human rights activists, lawyers and victims who suffered at the hand of Pinochet’s military dictatorship, are of the opinion Pinochet will never be found guilty of a single human rights crimes nor -like Al Capone- be prosecuted for tax fraud and illicit enrichment.