Chilean appeals court drops charges against Pinochet
SANTIAGO, Chile -- A Chilean appeals court on Monday unanimously dismissed homicide and kidnapping charges against the nation's former military ruler, Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Prosecutors immediately said they would appeal the ruling to the Chilean Supreme Court.
Arguments centered on the defense's claim that Judge Juan Guzman acted illegally by indicting Pinochet before questioning him.
Pinochet faces more than 180 criminal complaints stemming from alleged human rights abuses during his 1973-90 regime.
He was accused of having responsibility for the "Caravan of Death," a military operation that executed political prisoners shortly after the September 11, 1973, coup in which Pinochet ousted Marxist President Salvador Allende.
Pinochet was charged with homicide for 55 victims whose bodies were recovered and kidnapping for at least 18 who remain missing.
"We won, we won," an exultant Pinochet lawyer, Sergio Castro, told reporters as he raised three fingers from his hand to indicate the 3-0 vote by the 5th Chamber in the Santiago Court of Appeals panel.
Carmen Hertz, an anti-Pinochet lawyer and the widow of a dissident killed during Pinochet's regime, called the court's decision "a mere technicality."
"The court has only ruled that the indictment of Pinochet was improper because he was not questioned by a judge before it was issued," Hertz said. "But the ruling does not involve the essence of the case against him."
"We will now go to the Supreme Court," she added.
Pinochet, 85, returned to Chile from Britain in March after spending 503 days under house arrest near London. He was detained in Britain in October 1998 at the request of a Spanish judge who wanted to try him on charges of torture, but Britain ruled he was too old and sick to be tried.