Santiago, Chile – Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s wife and four grown children were indicted and ordered arrested Monday on charges of tax evasion related to the former dictator’s multimillion-dollar accounts at overseas banks, according to a judge’s resolution read on state television.
Judge Carlos Cerda also granted freedom on bail to Pinochet’s wife, Lucia Hiriart and four of his five children – Lucia, Veronica, Jacqueline and Marco Antonio, a benefit that must be upheld by the Santiago Court of Appeals. The older son, also named Augusto, was not indicted.
The combined alleged tax evasion by the Pinochet family mentioned in the resolution amounts to $2.05 million.
Also indicted were a lawyer for Pinochet and a secretary for Pinochet and the wife of Marco Antonio, his younger son.
According to Cerda’s resolution, they all filed false tax returns.
Cerda set bails ranging from $5,600 to $560.
Cerda’s decision is part of his investigation to determine the source of Pinochet’s fortune abroad, officially estimated at $28 million.
Pinochet himself had been indicted earlier on tax evasion charges and his wife and son, Marco Antonio, were charged as accomplices. All those indictments were appealed and rulings are pending.
Cerda summoned the Pinochet family lawyers to his office to notify them of his resolution, and sent his secretary, Silvia Pappa, to Pinochet’s suburban Santiago mansion to serve notice of the indictments.
Pinochet also is under indictment and is free on bail on human rights charges.
His lawyers have appealed saying that the former strongman’s deteriorated health makes him unfit to stand trial, a claim that led the courts to block four attempts to try Pinochet, who suffers from mild dementia, diabetes, arthritis and has a pacemaker. But court-appointed doctors who examined him recently said those conditions are not serious enough to prevent him from standing trial.
