A Chilean court said on Friday that it has completed a decade-long investigation into the origin of late dictator Augusto Pinochet’s fortune and the general’s suspected embezzlement of public funds.
An appeals court in Santiago decided unanimously to close the investigation, clearing the way for lead Judge Manuel Valderrama to formally accuse former Chilean military members in relation to alleged collaborations with Pinochet in the so-called Riggs Bank case.
In August of last year, a court decided not to charge any of Pinochet’s family members in the case, but did charge three retired generals and three retired colonels for the suspected embezzlement of public funds.
They include former generals Jorge Ballerino, Ramon Castro and Sergio Moreno, and former colonels Eugenio Castillo, Gabriel Vergara and Juan MacLean.
Pinochet was charged in 2005 with tax evasion in connection with the millions of US dollars held in foreign bank accounts, which came to light after a US Senate investigation into banking irregularities at the now-defunct Washington-based Riggs Bank.
An audit by the Universidad de Chile’s Business and Economics faculty in 2010 estimated that Pinochet had accumulated US$21 million before his death, of which more than US$17 million was of unknown origin.
Pinochet, who took power after a 1973 military coup, died in 2006 at 91. He never faced a full trial for alleged crimes committed during his dictatorship from 1973 to 1990, when an estimated 3,000 people were kidnapped and killed, or “disappeared,” and 28,000 were tortured.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
RSS