"BRING PINOCHET TO JUSTICE!
A campaign by the Institute for Policy Studies
in cooperation with the Transnational Institute"

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PINOCHET REPORTEDLY STRIPPED OF IMMUNITY IN SECRET COURT VOTE
Clifford Krauss
The New York Times, 2 August 2000

"The Chilean Supreme Court reportedly voted in secret to strip General Augusto Pinochet of his senatorial immunity, according to local radio and website accounts. The decision would remove the last legal obstacle to a full-scale criminal investigation of the former dictator and would permit his trial on charges of kidnapping, murder and torture.
"The president of the court, Hernan Alvarez, said the justices would release their opinion formally sometime next week. We are not going to make any statements', said Mr. Alvarez, after the 20 justices consulted for four hours on Tuesday. The Supreme Court has instructed me merely to say an agreement was reached.
"But neither he nor any other court or government official disputed the reports, all attributed to anonymous sources close to the Supreme Court and the presidential palace, and all widely disseminated among Chileans.
"The vote, reported as 11 to 9, had been expected after the court's 11-to-9 rejection last week of a defense motion to proceed with medical tests of the former dictator before ruling on his immunity.
"I am very content, said Juan Bustos, a lawyer for human rights victims involved in the case against General Pinochet, 84. The report surging through the courthouse is that we have won and General Pinochet no longer has immunity from prosecution. There were no public reactions from General Pinochet's lawyers or family.
"On Wednesday, a Spanish lawyer, Juan Garc�s, who was involved in the failed effort to put General Pinochet on trial in Spain said he had confirmed that the court voted to lift the former dictator's immunity from prosecution, The Associated Press reported from Madrid.
"With the decision, the Supreme Court has apparently upheld a ruling made in May by the Chilean Court of Appeals, which was also revealed to many of the same news organizations more than a week before it became official. Lawyers arguing the case against General Pinochet maintained that there was enough evidence linking him to disappearances and other crimes that he should be stripped of his senatorial immunity.
"Never elected to the Senate, General Pinochet took his lifetime seat in 1998 under a constitutional provision written during his 17-year dictatorship. The case against General Pinochet gathered momentum here after he was arrested in London in 1998 on a Spanish warrant for many serious rights violations. He was freed for health reasons four months ago and allowed to return to Chile, but his standing in society and even among the military leaders and rightist parties has suffered."

Case information courtesy of New York Times