Chile court lifts Pinochet's immunity in embezzlement case
Chile's Supreme Court announced on Friday it has ratified an April Appeals Court decision to strip ex-leader Gen. Augusto Pinochet of his immunity on charges of public funds misuse.

Under the ruling, Pinochet has to stand trial for transferring government funds to personal accounts, including several overseas bank accounts, and companies owned by Pinochet during his rule from 1973 to 1990.

According to the investigation report of Appeals Court judge Carlos Cerda, Pinochet, now 90, and his family embezzled government funds through an organization called Casa Militar (Army Home), a consultancy made up of senior army officers which managed part of Chile's presidential budget from 1981 to 1990.

The report also said the consultancy transferred 61,320 dollars to two Riggs Bank accounts in 1981 to pay the bills of Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, Pinochet's eldest son; deposited 1.1 million dollars in the same bank in the United States in June and July, 1984, in the name of John Long, a fake identity.

Cerda estimates that Pinochet had squirreled away more than 27 million dollars in secret overseas bank accounts in the United States, Switzerland and Panama.

In a related development, Carmen Frei, daughter of Eduardo Frei Montalva, Chile's president from 1964 to 1970, told local radio on Friday she suspected Pinochet of killing her father in 1982.

She made the public statement after Augusto Larrain, a doctor who operated on Frei before he died in 1982, said in a television documentary Thursday night that he believed that a foul play was involved in the death of Frei.

Frei died of acute peritonitis from an intestinal obstruction that developed shortly after a hernia operation.

Carmen Frei, a former senator, said she would seek the lifting of Pinochet's presidential immunity from prosecution in relation to the case.

Pinochet is currently under house arrest in an exclusive Santiago neighborhood, waiting for judgment in a series of cases against him.