Chilean Tax Authority Asks to Temove Pinochet's Immunity
The Internal Tax Service (SII) of Chile asked the court Thursday to remove the immunity of former dictator Augusto Pinochet so that he can be charged with tax evasion for secret accounts in the United States.

Juan Toro, the SII director, approved on Tuesday to file the petition to judge Jorge Zepeda to remove the immunity from prosecution Pinochet enjoys as a former president and senator.

The SII is investigating charges that Pinochet failed to declare the interests he received from secret accounts in US-based Riggs Bank in his annual tax report for six years and he had misused public funds.

In July 2004, a US Senate investigation revealed that Pinochet and his family hid 15 million US dollars in secret accounts over three decades.

Pinochet in February offered to pay 5 million dollars in back taxes in hopes that courts would give him access to some 6.5 million dollars in assets frozen during the tax probe.

The 89-year-old man took power in a bloody coup in 1973 and ruled for 17 years. An official report said 3,197 people died or disappeared under Pinochet's military rule.

The Supreme Court has stripped Pinochet of immunity in two human rights cases but the cases have been delayed because of his health problems claimed by his defense.

On Sept. 30 last year, the Chilean tax authority has charged Pinochet, his personal financial advisor Oscar Aitken and anyone who was involved in his "incomplete income-tax reports" from 1998 to 2004, amounting to 4.2 million dollars.

On Jan. 24 this year, the SII extended the investigation to the year 1980.

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