Chile to Announce Pinochet's StatusSantiago's Court of Appeals Magistrate Jaime Rodriguez said on Wednesday that the Court's final resolution on Augusto Pinochet's status as life senator cancellation, will be made public next week.Rodriguez was assigned on Tuesday to draft the Chilean court's extraordinary plenary session's decision on the case to be signed by all of the members of the plenary session. Appeals court president Ruben Ballesteros said the decision on immunity would be made public only after it has been signed by all 22 judges and written out, a process that may take up to two weeks. Government officials and members of congress pressed for a speedy public announcement. In the plenary session of the court that extraordinarily met on Tuesday to pass judgment on the petition of privation of privileges against the former Chilean military ruler, the voting took place. Source said that the sentence has 13 votes for and 9 against the petition. According to an official report compiled by the civilian government that succeeded Pinochet, 3,191 people died or disappeared under his 1973-1990 regime. More than 100 lawsuits have been filed against him stemming from that era. In 1998, Pinochet was detained in London on a Spanish judge's warrant seeking to try him on human rights charges. But he returned home to Chile in March--released by Britain after doctors determined he was physically and mentally unfit to face trial. Despite his poor health, Pinochet will now have to face the courts in the country he once ruled. Chilean law does not exempt sick people from legal penalties except in cases of madness or dementia. |
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