General Augusto Pinochet's widow, children and former associates were released on bail in Chile two days after their arrest on corruption charges.
The two sons and three daughters of the late dictator walked out of prison on Saturday and went straight to the Santiago Military Hospital to see their mother, Lucia Hiriart, who has been treated there for high blood pressure since her arrest.
On Thursday, Judge Carlos Cerda order their arrests on charges of misuse of state funds during the 1973 to 1990 dictatorship.
PHOTO: EPA
The charges stem from the former dictator's multimillion dollar bank accounts in the US and elsewhere. The former dictator was under indictment in the case when he died last December at age 91.
Pinochet and his associates have steadfastly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the bank accounts, saying the funds were legitimate savings and investments, plus donations Pinochet received.
Judge Juan Eduardo Fuentes said a three member-panel unanimously agreed to allow 23 relatives and associates of the former dictator to be freed and set bail ranging from US$200 to US$590. In addition to Pinochet's relatives, the indicted included 17 former aides, with six retired army generals among them.
Pinochet's son Augusto repeated statements suggesting the case against the family is politically motivated.
Leaving prison, he challenged Chileans to "judge for yourselves."
"This is my personal reasoning: This country should think about what's going on," he said.
The family lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez, called the legal accusations "unprecedented, open political persecution."
The case exposed the divisions Pinochet still inspires among Chileans. Fights between supporters and foes of Pinochet broke out repeatedly in front of the different facilities where the indicted were being held.
At least 3,197 dissidents were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship, according to an official report. More than 1,000 of them remain unaccounted for.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS