2005: Pinochet’s Annus Horribilis

The British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, described 1992 in her year-end speech as Annus Horribilis, or horrible year. The same quote can be used to describe 2005 for former dictator General Augusto Pinochet’s year. 2005, was the year where the wheels of justice finally caught up with aging former dictator.

Pinochet spent Christmas and the New Year under house arrest pending a resolution in the Riggs Bank case of illicit enrichment and for the forced disappearance of at least 6 people in the so-called Operation Colombo case.

Pinochet’s lawyer Pablo Rodríguez said his client is the victim of political persecution that should not be part the judicial system. “I would say this year we have seen the perfecting of a gross persecution against General Pinochet,” Rodríguez said.

“I am saddened for some of the rulings, because I sense that a political criteria has been applied over judicial judgement. I will continue to fight for the proper application of the law.”

“The persecution General Pinochet faces should not be in the Courts,” Rodríguez added.

The lawyer made his comments to the press after finding out, last Friday, that Pinochet faces the charges of embezzlement of public funds. Santiago’s Appeals Court ruled that Pinochet can be tried for the embezzlement of some US$ 2 Million for his own and his family’s benefit.

Rodríguez, a well-connected lawyer with Chile’s right-wing and with business circles, was the leader of the early 1970’s nationalist paramilitary movement “Fatherland and Liberty”. Rodríguez’s group perpetrated a number of violent actions against Salvador Allende’s Socialist government.

“Fatherland and Liberty” is linked to a series of killings, including the 1970 murder of then head of the Army.

The Riggs Bank case came to light after a U.S. Senate investigation found that Pinochet held secret bank accounts in different branches of the Washington based Riggs Bank. The Senate was investigating secret bank accounts and the U.S. banking system following the September 11 terrorist attack to New York and Washington.

Prosecuting Judge Carlos Cerda, has established Pinochet hid some US$ 26 Million, funds that to date have not been explained by Pinochet’s defence. In November Judge Cerda ordered that all of Pinochet’s properties be assessed.

Pinochet’s family also faces serious legal troubles in the Riggs Bank case. His wife, eldest and youngest sons and closest advisors are under investigation by Judge Cerda.

Plaintiff-lawyer in the Operation Colombo case, Hernán Quezada, celebrated that 2005 was the year Pinochet could no longer argue illness and his age as an excuse to escape prosecution.

“Happily this year the human rights cases against Augusto Pinochet have found their stride, because Pinochet cannot longer hide arguing mental illness, an illness proven false.”

In the Operation Colombo case Pinochet is charged of killing at least 6 opponents to his dictatorship and he could face charges of killing a total of 119 opponents.

Operation Colombo was an orchestrated campaign to dispose in Argentina of the bodies of the 119 killed opponents. Pinochet’s security forces arranged with those of Argentina and Brazil to plant in one-time publications in Buenos Aired and Brazil that the opponents killed each other in an internal struggle for power. Soon after the planted story was printed in Chile’s heavily censored press with screaming headlines that said: “they killed each other like rats,” particularly in the pro regime press.

Pinochet is also under investigatigation for his participation in the killings that took place in the notorious Santiago Villa Grimaldi torture centre.

He was also confronted by the jailed former head of the secret police General Manuel Contreras under the investigating of the Operation Colombo and Villa Grimaldi cases.

2005 was indeed Pinochet’s “Annus Horribilis.”