Pinochet's Week In Court

By Peter Kornbluh

This article appeared in the October 10, 2005 edition of The Nation.

September 22, 2005

On September 14 the Chilean Supreme Court ruled that Augusto Pinochet could be stripped of his immunity and prosecuted for the crimes of Operation Colombo--a macabre effort by his secret police to cover up the disappearances of 119 leftists. To make the disappeared in effect reappear, Pinochet's agents placed on the streets of Buenos Aires unrecognizable, mutilated bodies tagged with the names of the missing and then planted propaganda indicating that those missing had been killed by fellow leftists.

On September 15, however, the Court issued a procedural ruling that makes it far less likely that Pinochet will be prosecuted for international terrorism crimes related to Operation Condor. Pinochet faces additional charges related to financial corruption and tax evasion.

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About Peter Kornbluh

Peter Kornbluh directs the Cuba Documentation Project and the Chile Documentation Project at the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org), a public interest research center located at George Washington University (Washington, DC). He is co-author of The Iran-Contra Scandal: The Declassified History (New Press) and author of a new book, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New Press).

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