Pinochet charged over disappearance of dissidents
Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was charged Thursday over the disappearance of dissidents under his regime and placed under house arrest, hours after he made bail on charges of corruption and tax evasion filed only a day earlier.

Judge Victor Montiglio charged Pinochet in connection with the disappearance of six dissidents arrested by Pinochet's security services in late 1974, his office said.

The six people were among 119 leftist anti-regime activists who disappeared from Chilean jails in 1975 in a case known as Operation Colombo. Their bodies were later found in Argentina and Brazil.

Pinochet had been indicted and put under house arrest on Wednesday by another judge, Carlos Cerda, on charges of tax evasion and corruption.

Pinochet was charged in the previous case with tax evasion, use of a fake passport to open bank accounts, perjury and forging state documents, in connection with an illicit fortune of 27 million US dollars.

But he was granted freedom early Thursday by the Santiago Court of Appeals on a 6-million-peso (11,500 US dollars) bail. Pinochet's lawyer had said he would appeal the corruption indictment against the former ruler, who will turn 90 on Friday, saying that the old man was being "persecuted."

This time the judge did not grant Pinochet the right to bail. There was no immediate comment from Pinochet's lawyer on Thursday's arrest either.

Pinochet had recently told Judge Montiglio that he has no knowledge of the operation.

During his recent questioning, Pinochet was quoted in official records as saying: "I regret and suffer for these (human) losses, but God will forgive me if I have committed excesses, ... which I do not believe."

Although Pinochet has been arrested several times for accusations ranging from plotting the murder of opposition activists to illicit use of public funds, he has not yet been put on trial on health grounds.

But recently court-appointed experts found him mentally fit to stand trial for Operation Colombo. The supreme court in September lifted Pinochet's legal immunity from prosecution in the Colombo case.