Pinochet Arrested for Tax Evasion

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest today on charges of tax evasion and corruption, just two days short of his 90th birthday.

Chilean television reported that court officials served Mr Pinochet with an indictment and arrest order at his mansion in the suburbs of Santiago.

Prosecuting judge Carlos Cerda posted a £12,800 bail, which must be approved by Chile's court of appeal.

The charges relate to Mr Pinochet's network of overseas bank accounts in the US, UK and Gibraltar, which Chilean prosecutors believe is worth more than £13m.

More than £1m of that total came in the form of off-balance-sheet payments from British arms company BAE, the Guardian reported earlier this year.

Claims that he received bribes from European arms companies were not included in the indictment, but continue to be investigated by Judge Cerda. The charges include evading £1.4m in taxes, using a false passport to open an account abroad, submitting a false government document to a bank and filing a false report on his personal assets.

His wife and son were arrested in August over their links to the affair, and Mr Pinochet already paid off nearly £1.2m in missing taxes earlier this year. His lawyers argue that the money in the accounts came from donations, savings, and interest on investments.

"Today (he's charged with) economic crimes, let's hope that tomorrow it's for the genocide that took place during 17 years of dictatorship," Lorena Pizarro, president of Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos (Association of Families of the Detained and Disappeared), told reporters at the Santiago tribunal building.

Mr Pinochet seized power in Chile in 1973. During the brutal regime that followed, 3,000 people were executed or "disappeared", and more than 27,000 were arrested and tortured. His government enjoyed support from western governments who regarded him as a bulwark against communism in Latin America, in contrast to his socialist predecessor Salvador Allende.

His legal problems began in 1998, when he was arrested in Britain on the orders of a Spanish judge who wanted him extradited over the torture of Spanish citizens during his dictatorship.

After 16 months of legal battles he was returned to Chile in 2000, where he was stripped of parliamentary immunity that had until then prevented him from being prosecuted.

But he has yet to be put on trial for any of his crimes. Previous moves to bring Mr Pinochet to the bench on human rights charges have been cancelled after the courts ruled that the former dictator could not face trial because of his poor health. Dozens of private criminal suits filed by victims of his regime are still pending.

Court-appointed doctors who examined him last month declared that he was suffering from mild dementia following a series of strokes, but was otherwise fit to stand trial.

The interior ministry also asked today that he be put on trial for his involvement in a 1974 episode in which his political opponents were murdered and dumped over the border in Argentina. The move comes after Mr Pinochet's immunity from prosecution for the incident was lifted by the courts.