Pinochets Charged With Misuse of Chilean Funds
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The widow of a Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, and his five children were charged with misuse of public funds by a Chilean judge investigating the general’s foreign bank accounts.
Judge Carlos Cerda said about $8.22 million of government funds were diverted by Pinochet to banks abroad, according to a copy of the charges distributed by a Chilean court. Judge Cerda issued an arrest order for Lucia Hiriart Rodriguez, Pinochet’s widow, his five children, and 17 other people.
“This is an extremely important development for Chile’s democracy and the rule of law,” the director of the Americas division at Human Rights Watch in Washington, Jose Miguel Vivanco, said. “Going after the relatives of the powerful and the fortunes they amassed used to be considered off limits.”
Pinochet’s legacy has caused division since his death, from natural causes, at the age of 91 in December 2006. His regime killed more than 3,000 opponents and tortured over 29,000 people, according to panels set up after Chile’s 1990 return to democracy.
