Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean army general and leader of a military dictatorship that assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973. Among his titles, he was the Commander - in - Chief of the Chilean army from 1973 to 1998, president of the Government Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1974 and President of the Republic from 1974 until transferring power to a democratically elected president in 1990.

By early 1972, Pinochet was answering to General Chief of Staff of the Army. In 23 August 1973, he was ascended to Commander - in - Chief of the Chilean Army by president Salvador Allende. On 11 September 1973, Pinochet led a coup d'état which overthrew Allende's democratically elected socialist government (elected with a minority of preferences - less than 36% of the total population). In December 1974, the military junta appointed Pinochet as President by a joint decree, with which Air Force General Gustavo Leigh disagreed. From the beginning, the government implemented harsh measures against its political opponents. According to various reports and investigations 1,200 – 3,200 people were killed, up to 80,000 were interned, and up to 30,000 were tortured by his regime including women and children. The new government also implemented economic reforms, including the privatization of several state controlled industries and the rollback of many state welfare institutions. These policies produced what has been referred to as the "miracle of Chile", but the government policies dramatically increased economic inequality and some attribute the devastating effect of the 1982 monetary crisis in the Chilean economy precisely to these policies. Pinochet's economic policies were continued and strengthened by successive governments after 1990. Chile is now the best performing economy in Latin America, though academics continue to dispute the legacy of Pinochet's reforms.

Pinochet's regime was given a legal framework through a highly controversial plebiscite in 1980, which approved a new Constitution drafted by a government appointed commission. A plebiscite in 1988 (which saw 56% vote against continuing his presidency) led to democratic elections for the Presidency and Parliament. After peacefully stepping down in 1990, Pinochet continued to serve as Commander - in - Chief of the Chilean Army until 10 March 1998, when he retired and became a senator - for - life in accordance with the 1980 Constitution. In 2004, Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia ruled that Pinochet was medically fit to stand trial and placed him under house arrest. By the time of his death on 10 December 2006, about 300 criminal charges were still pending against him in Chile for numerous human rights violations, tax evasion and embezzlement during his 17 year rule and afterwards. Pinochet was accused of having corruptly amassed a wealth of US$28 million or more.

Pinochet was born in Valparaíso to Augusto Pinochet Vera, descendant of a Breton immigrant from Lamballe, and Avelina Ugarte Martínez, woman of Basque descent. He went to primary and secondary school at the San Rafael Seminary of Valparaíso, the Rafael Ariztía Institute (Marist Brothers) in Quillota, the French Fathers' School of Valparaíso, and then to the Military School in Santiago, which he entered in 1931. In 1935, after four years of study, he graduated with the rank of alférez (Second Lieutenant) in the infantry. In September 1937, Pinochet was assigned to the "Chacabuco" Regiment, in Concepción. Two years later, in 1939, then with the rank of Sub - lieutenant, he moved to the "Maipo" Regiment, garrisoned in Valparaíso. He returned to Infantry School in 1940. On 30 January 1943, he married Lucía Hiriart Rodríguez, with whom he has five children: Inés Lucía, María Verónica, Jacqueline Marie, Augusto Osvaldo, and Marco Antonio.

By late 1945, Pinochet was assigned to the "Carampangue" Regiment in the northern city of Iquique. Three years later, he entered the War Academy, but he had to postpone his studies because, being the youngest officer, he had to carry out a service mission in the coal zone of Lota. The following year he returned to his studies in the Academy, and after obtaining the title of Officer Chief of Staff, in 1951, he returned to teach at the Military School. At the same time, he worked as a teachers' aide at the War Academy, giving military geography and geopolitics classes. In addition to this, he was active as editor of the institutional magazine Cien Águilas ("One Hundred Eagles"). At the beginning of 1953, with the rank of Major, he was sent for two years to the "Rancagua" Regiment in Arica. While there, he was appointed professor of the Chilean War Academy, and he returned to Santiago to take up his new position.

In 1956, Pinochet and a group of young officers were chosen to form a military mission that would collaborate in the organization of the War Academy of Ecuador in Quito, which forced him to suspend his law studies. He remained with the Quito mission for three - and - a - half years, during which time he dedicated himself to the study of geopolitics, military geography and intelligence. It's been recently alleged that while in Quito Pinochet had a romance with Piedad Noe, and fathered a boy called Juan. At the end of 1959, he returned to Chile and was sent to General Headquarters of the 1st Army Division, based in Antofagasta. The following year, he was appointed Commander of the "Esmeralda" Regiment. Due to his success in this position, he was appointed Sub - director of the War Academy in 1963. In 1968, he was named Chief of Staff of the 2nd Army Division, based in Santiago, and at the end of that year, he was promoted to Brigadier General and Commander in Chief of the 6th Division, garrisoned in Iquique. In his new function, he was also appointed Intendant of the Tarapacá Province.

In January 1971, Pinochet rose to Division General, and was named General Commander of the Santiago Army Garrison. At the beginning of 1972, he was appointed General Chief of Staff of the Army. With rising domestic strife in Chile, after General Prats resigned his position, Pinochet was appointed Commander in Chief of the Army on 23 August 1973 by President Salvador Allende just the day after the Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved a resolution asserting that the government was not respecting the Constitution. Less than a month later, the Chilean military deposed Allende.

On 11 September 1973, the combined Chilean Armed Forces (the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Carabineros) overthrew Allende's government in a coup, during which the presidential palace, La Moneda, was shelled and Allende allegedly committed suicide, although this claim is under judicial investigation in the Chilean court.

In his memoirs, Pinochet affirmed that he was the leading plotter of the coup, and used his position as Commander - in - chief of the Army to coordinate a far reaching scheme with the other two branches of the military and the national police. In later years, however, high military officials from the time have said that Pinochet reluctantly got involved only a few days before it was scheduled to occur and followed the lead of the other branches (especially the Navy, under Merino) as they triggered the coup.

In the months that followed the coup, the junta, with authoring work by historian Gonzalo Vial and admiral Patricio Carvajal, published a book titled El Libro Blanco del cambio de gobierno en Chile (commonly known as El Libro Blanco, "The White Book of the Change of Government in Chile"), where they attempted to justify the coup by claiming that they were in fact anticipating a self - coup (the alleged Plan Zeta, or Plan Z) that Allende's government and/or its associates were purportedly preparing. United States intelligence agencies believed the plan to be simple propaganda. Although later discredited and officially recognized as the product of political propaganda, some Chilean historians have pointed to the similarities between the alleged Plan Z and other existing paramilitary plans of the Popular Unity parties in support of its legitimacy.

Canadian Jean Charpentier of Télévision de Radio - Canada became the first foreign journalist to interview General Pinochet following the coup.

The U.S. provided material support to the military regime after the coup, although criticizing it in public. A document released by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled "CIA Activities in Chile", revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it made many of Pinochet's officers into paid contacts of the CIA or U.S. military, even though some were known to be involved in human rights abuses. Perhaps most infamously, the CIA maintained contacts among the Chilean DINA intelligence service while DINA leaders, under Pinochet's direct command, led the multinational anti - communism campaign known as Operation Condor, resulting in assassinations of prominent politicians and activists of the legal left in various Latin American countries, in Washington, D.C., and in Europe. In particular, CIA contact with the head DINA, Manuel Contreras, was established soon after the coup (in 1974, during the Junta period prior to official transfer of Presidential powers to Pinochet); in 1975, the CIA reviewed a warning that keeping Contreras as an asset might trouble the maintenance of human rights in the region, yet they chose to keep him as an asset anyhow and even made him a paid asset at one point. In addition to the CIA's maintaining of assets in DINA beginning soon after the coup, several CIA assets, such as CORU Cuban exile militants Orlando Bosch and Guillermo Novo, collaborated in DINA operations under the Condor Plan in the early years of Pinochet's presidency.

While the US certainly supported the Pinochet regime after the 1973 coup, there is no evidence that the US was directly involved in the coup. However, the Church Report concluded that while the US had not directly participated in the 1973 coup, it had supported an attempted coup in 1970, and had directed money to anti - Allende elements during the period 1970 – 1973, including possibly terrorist groups. The armed forces under Pinochet's command had strong enough coordination and military resources (as well as sufficient motivation) to undertake the coup on their own, as evidenced by their earlier coup attempt known as the Tanquetazo. Of course, many historians have noted the role of US economic policy towards Chile in creating the conditions that led to the coup; in Kissinger's own words, the US intended to "make the [Chilean] economy scream," and after the coup, Kissinger remarked to Nixon that despite the lack of direct US involvement, "we helped them... created the conditions as great as possible."

A military junta was established immediately following the coup, made up of General Pinochet representing the Army, Admiral José Toribio Merino representing the Navy, General Gustavo Leigh representing the Air Force, and General César Mendoza representing the Carabineros (national police). As established the junta exercised both executive and legislative functions of the government, suspended the Constitutionand the Congress, imposed strict censorship and curfew, banned all parties and halted all political activities. This military junta held the executive role until 17 December 1974, after which it remained strictly as a legislative body, the executive powers being transferred to Pinochet with the title of President.

The junta members originally planned for the presidency to rotate among the commanders - in - chief of the four military branches. However, Pinochet soon consolidated his control, first retaining sole chairmanship of the military junta, and then proclaiming himself "Supreme Chief of the Nation" (de facto provisional president) on 27 June 1974. He officially changed his title to "President" on 17 December 1974. General Leigh, head of the Air Force, became increasingly opposed to Pinochet's policies and was forced into retirement on 24 July 1978, after contradicting Pinochet on that year's plebiscite (officially called Consulta Nacional, or National Consultation, in response to a UN resolution condemning Pinochet's government). He would be replaced by General Fernando Matthei.

Pinochet organized a plebiscite on 11 September 1980. The Chilean people were asked to ratify a new Constitution, replacing the 1925 Constitution drafted during Arturo Alessandri's presidency. The new Constitution, partly drafted by Jaime Guzmán, a close adviser to Pinochet and future founder of the right wing party Independent Democrat Union (UDI), gave the position of President of the Republic, held by Pinochet, a large amount of power. It created some new institutions, such as the Constitutional Tribunal and the controversial National Security Council (COSENA). It also prescribed an 8 year presidential period, and a single candidate presidential referendum in 1988, where a candidate nominated by the Junta would be approved or rejected for another 8 year period. The 1980 referendum was approved by 67.04% against 30.19%, although the opposition denounced extensive irregularities. Headed by ex-president Eduardo Frei Montalva, they argued that this result did not tally with electoral records. One objection was that voters cast their vote using as identification only their own ID cards, without any official records, and were only marked with ink on the thumb, which came off rapidly, making electoral fraud easy. These criticisms were rejected by the Scrutiny Association, and the Constitution was promulgated on 21 October 1980, taking effect on 11 March 1981. Pinochet was replaced as President of the Junta that day by Admiral Merino.

In a massive operation spearheaded by Chilean Army Para-Commandos, security forces involving some 2,000 troops, were deployed in the mountains of Neltume from June to November, where they destroyed two MIR bases, seizing large caches of munitions and killing a number of guerrillas.

In a 1985 report, the Inter - American Commission on Human Rights stated that it hoped that "the case now under way will lead to the identification and punishment of the persons responsible for the execution of so culpable an act." Eventually, six members of the police secret service were given life sentences.

In 1986, security forces discovered 80 tons of weapons at the tiny fishing harbor of Carrizal Bajo, smuggled into the country by the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), the armed branch of the outlawed Communist Party, created in 1983. The shipment of Carrizal Bajo included C-4 plastic explosives, RPG-7 and M72 LAW rocket launchers as well as more than three thousand M-16 rifles. The operation was overseen by Cuban intelligence, and also involved East Germany and the Soviet Union.

In September, weapons from the same source were used in an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Pinochet by the FPMR. Taken by surprise, five of his military bodyguards were killed. Although Pinochet's Mercedes Benz bulletproof vehicle was struck by a rocket, it did not explode, and Pinochet suffered only minor injuries, managing to escape.

Pinochet and his regime have been characterised as fascist. For example, author Samuel Chavkin, in his book Storm Over Chile: The Junta Under Siege, repeatedly characterizes both Pinochet himself and the military dictatorship as fascist. However, he and his regime are generally excluded from academic typologies of fascism. Roger Griffin included Pinochet in a group of pseudo - populist despots distinct from fascism and including the likes of Hitler (to a certain extent since Pinochet was not fanatically violent), Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceauşescu, Pol Pot, Suharto, and Ferdinand Marcos. He argues that such regimes may be considered populist ultra - nationalism but lack the palingenesis necessary to make them conform to the model of palingenetic ultranationalism. Robert Paxton meanwhile compared Pinochet's regime to that of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, arguing that both were merely client states that lacked popular acclaim and the ability to expand. He further argued that had Pinochet attempted to build true fascism, the regime would likely have been toppled or at least been forced to alter its relationship to the United States. Anna Cento Bull also excluded Pinochet from fascism, although she has argued that his regime belongs to a strand of Cold War anti - communism that was happy to accommodate neo - fascist elements within its activity. World Fascism: a Historical encyclopedia notes:

Although he was authoritarian and ruled dictatorially, Pinochet's support of neoliberal economic policies and his unwillingness to support national businesses distinguished him from classical fascists.

This view is implicitly rejected by those who have argued that the Chilean economy revived under Pinochet only when the regime adopted corporatist economic policies as opposed to neoliberal ones of the Chicago School. The notion of Pinochet's "unwillingness to support national businesses" has been challenged by such critics, including Noam Chomsky; indeed, the copper industry remained nationalized throughout Pinochet's presidency and remains so to this day.

Almost immediately after the military's seizure of power, the junta banned all the leftist parties that had constituted Allende's UP coalition. All other parties were placed in "indefinite recess," and were later banned outright. The government's violence was directed not only against dissidents, but also against their families and other civilians.

The Rettig Report concluded 2,279 persons who disappeared during the military government were killed for political reasons or as a result of political violence, and approximately 31,947 tortured according to the later Valech Report, while 1,312 were exiled. The latter were chased all over the world by the intelligence agencies. In Latin America, this was made in the frame of Operation Condor, a cooperation plan between the various intelligence agencies of South American countries, assisted by a United States CIA communication base in Panama. Pinochet believed these operations were necessary in order to "save the country from communism".

Some political scientists have ascribed the relative bloodiness of the coup to the stability of the existing democratic system, which required extreme action to overturn. Some of the most famous cases of human rights violation occurred during the early period: in October 1973, at least 70 people were killed throughout the country by the Caravan of Death. Charles Horman, a US journalist, "disappeared", as did Víctor Olea Alegría, a member of the Socialist Party, and many others, in 1973.

Furthermore, many other important officials of Allende's government were tracked down by the DINA in the frame of Operation Condor. Thus, General Carlos Prats, Pinochet's predecessor and army commander under Allende, who had resigned rather than support the moves against Allende's government, was assassinated in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1974. A year later, the murder of 119 opponents abroad was disguised as an internal conflict, the DINA setting up a propaganda campaign to accredit this thesis (Operation Colombo), campaign that received diffusion by the leading newspaper in Chile, El Mercurio.

Other victims of Condor included, among hundreds of less famous persons, Juan José Torres, the former President of Bolivia, assassinated in Buenos Aires on 2 June 1976; Carmelo Soria, a UN diplomat working for the CEPAL, assassinated in July 1976; Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean ambassador to the United States and minister in Allende's cabinet, assassinated after his release from internment and exile in Washington, D.C., by a car bomb on 21 September 1976. This led to strained relations with the US and to the extradition of Michael Townley, a US citizen who worked for the DINA and had organized Letelier's assassination. Other targeted victims, who escaped assassination, included Christian Democrat Bernardo Leighton, who escaped an assassination attempt in Rome in 1975 by the Italian terrorist Stefano delle Chiaie; Carlos Altamirano, the leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, targeted for murder in 1975 by Pinochet, along with Volodia Teitelboim, member of the Communist Party; Pascal Allende, the nephew of Salvador Allende and president of the MIR, who escaped an assassination attempt in Costa Rica in March 1976; US Congressman Edward Koch, who became aware in 2001 of relations between death threats and his denunciation of Operation Condor, etc. Furthermore, according to current investigations, Eduardo Frei Montalva, the Christian Democrat President of Chile from 1964 to 1970, may have been poisoned in 1982 by toxin produced by DINA biochemist Eugenio Berrios.

Protests continued, however, during the 1980s, leading to several scandals. In March 1985, the savage murder of three Communist Party members led to the resignation of César Mendoza, head of the Carabineros and member of the junta since its formation. During a 1986 protest against Pinochet, 21 year old American photographer Rodrigo Rojas DeNegri and 18 year old student Carmen Gloria Quintana were burnt alive, with only Carmen surviving.

In August 1989, Marcelo Barrios Andres, a 21 year old member of the FPMR (the armed wing of the PCC, created in 1983, which had attempted to assassinate Pinochet on 7 September 1986), was assassinated by a group of military personnel who were supposed to arrest him on orders of Valparaíso's public prosecutor. However, they simply executed him; this case was included in the Rettig Report. Among the killed and disappeared during the military regime were 440 MIR guerrillas.

In 1973, the Chilean economy was deeply hurt for several reasons, including the economic sanctions imposed by the Nixon administration, inflation was hundreds of percents, the country had no foreign reserves, and GDP was falling. By mid 1975, the government set forth an economic policy of free market reforms which attempted to stop inflation and collapse. He declared that he wanted "to make Chile not a nation of proletarians, but a nation of proprietors." To formulate the economic rescue, the government relied on the so called Chicago Boys.

The economic policies espoused by the Chicago Boys and implemented by the junta initially caused several economic indicators to decline for Chile's lower classes. Wages decreased by 8%. Family allowances in 1989 were 28% of what they had been in 1970 and the budgets for education, health and housing had dropped by over 20% on average. The junta relied on the middle class, the oligarchy, huge foreign corporations, and foreign loans to maintain itself. The oligarchy recovered most of its lost industrial and agricultural holdings, for the junta sold to private buyers most of the industries expropriated by Allende's Popular Unity government. This period saw the expansion of monopolies and widespread speculation.

Financial conglomerates became major beneficiaries of the liberalized economy and the flood of foreign bank loans. Large foreign banks reinstated the credit cycle, as the Junta saw that the basic state obligations, such as resuming payment of principal and interest installments, were honored. International lending organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF, and the Inter - American Development Bank lent vast sums anew. Many foreign multinational corporations such as International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), Dow Chemical, and Firestone, all expropriated by Allende, returned to Chile. Pinochet's policies eventually led to substantial GDP growth, in contrast to the negative growth seen in the early years of his administration. Foreign debt also grew substantially under Pinochet, rising 300% between 1974 and 1988.

His government implemented an economic model that had three main objectives: economic liberalization, privatization of state owned companies, and stabilization of inflation. In 1985, the government started with a second round of privatization, it revised previously introduced tariff increases and gave a greater supervisory role for the Central Bank. Pinochet's market liberalizations have continued after his death, led by Patricio Aylwin.

According to the transitional provisions of the 1980 Constitution, a referendum was scheduled for 5 October 1988, to vote on a new eight year presidential term for Pinochet. Confronted with increasing opposition, notably at the international level, Pinochet legalized political parties in 1987 and called for a plebiscite to determine whether or not he would remain in power until 1997. If the "YES" won, Pinochet would have to implement the dispositions of the 1980 Constitution, mainly the call for general elections, while he would himself remain in power as President. If the "NO" won, Pinochet would remain President for another year, and a joint Presidential and Parliamentary election would be scheduled.

Another reason of Pinochet's decision to call for elections was the April 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II to Chile. According to the US Catholic author George Weigel, he held a meeting with Pinochet during which they discussed a return to democracy. John Paul II allegedly pushed Pinochet to accept a democratic opening of the regime, and even called for his resignation.

Political advertising was legalized on 5 September 1987, as a necessary element for the campaign for the "NO" to the referendum, which countered the official campaign which presaged a return to a Popular Unity government in case of a defeat of Pinochet. The Opposition, gathered into the Concertación de Partidos por el NO ("Coalition of Parties for NO"), organized a colorful and cheerful campaign under the slogan La alegría ya viene ("Joy is coming"). It was formed by the Christian Democracy, the Socialist Party and the Radical Party, gathered in the Alianza Democrática (Democratic Alliance). In 1988, several more parties, including the Humanist Party, the Ecologist Party, the Social Democrats, and several Socialist Party splinter groups added their support.

On 5 October 1988, the "NO" option won with 55.99% of the votes, against 44.1% of "YES" votes. Pinochet complied, so the ensuing Constitutional process led to presidential and legislative elections the following year.

The Coalition changed its name to Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy) and put forward Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat who had opposed Allende, as presidential candidate, and also proposed a list of candidates for the parliamentary elections. The opposition and the Pinochet government made several negotiations to amend the Constitution and agreed to 54 modifications. These amendments changed the way the Constitution would be modified in the future, added restrictions to state of emergency dispositions, the affirmation of political pluralism, and enhanced constitutional rights as well as the democratic principle and participation to political life. In July 1989, a referendum on the proposed changes took place, supported by all the parties except the right wing Avanzada Nacional. The Constitutional changes were approved by 91.25% of the voters.

Thereafter, Aylwin won the December 1989 presidential election with 55% of the votes, against less than 30% for the right wing candidate, Hernan Buchi, who had been Pinochet's Minister of Finances since 1985 (there was also a third party candidate, Francisco Javier Errázuriz, a wealthy aristocrat that represented the extreme economic right, who garnered the remaining 15%). Pinochet thus left the presidency on 11 March 1990 and transferred power to the new democratically elected president.

The Concertación also won the majority of votes for the Parliament. However, due to the "binominal" representation system included in the constitution, the elected senators did not achieve a complete majority in Parliament, a situation that would last for over 15 years. This forced them to negotiate all law projects with the Alliance for Chile (originally called "Democracy and Progress" and then "Union for Chile"), a center - right coalition involving the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) and Renovación Nacional (RN), parties composed mainly of Pinochet's supporters.

Due to the transitional provisions of the constitution, Pinochet remained as Commander - in - Chief of the Army until March 1998. He was then sworn in as a senator - for - life, a privilege granted by the 1980 constitution to former presidents with at least six years in office. His senatorship and consequent immunity from prosecution protected him from legal action. These were only possible in Chile after Pinochet was arrested in 1998 in the United Kingdom, on an extradition request issued by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón — allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, but never acted upon. The extradition attempt was dramatised in the 2006 BBC television docudrama Pinochet in Suburbia, with Pinochet played by Derek Jacobi.

Chile was officially neutral during the Falklands War, but Chile's Westinghouse long range radar that was deployed in the south of the country gave the British task force early warning of Argentinian air attacks. This allowed British ships and troops in the war zone to take defensive action. Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister at the time of the war, has said that the day the radar was taken out of service for overdue maintenance was the day Argentinian fighter bombers bombed the troopships Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram, leaving 53 dead and many injured. According to Chilean Junta and former Air Force commander Fernando Matthei, Chilean support included military intelligence gathering, radar surveillance, allowing British aircraft to operate with Chilean colours, and facilitating the safe return of British special forces, among other forms of assistance. In April and May 1982, a squadron of mothballed British Hawker Hunter fighter bombers departed for Chile, arriving on 22 May and allowing the Chilean Air Force to reform the No. 9 "Las Panteras Negras" Squadron. A further consignment of three frontier surveillance and shipping reconnaissance Canberras left for Chile in October. Some authors have speculated that Argentina might have won the war had the military felt able to employ the elite VIth and VIIIth Mountain Brigades which remained sitting in the Andes guarding against possible Chilean incursions. Pinochet subsequently visited Margaret Thatcher for tea on more than one occasion. Pinochet's controversial relationship with Thatcher led Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair to mock Thatcher's Conservatives as "the party of Pinochet" in 1999.

The judicial case against Pinochet was a watershed event in judicial history, as it was the first time that a former government head was arrested on the principle of universal jurisdiction. After having been placed under house arrest in Britain and initiating a judicial and public relations battle, the latter run by Thatcherite political operative Patrick Robertson, he was eventually released in March 2000 on medical grounds by the Home Secretary Jack Straw without facing trial.

Pinochet returned to Chile on 3 March 2000. His first act when landing in Santiago's airport was to triumphantly get up from his wheelchair to the acclaim of his supporters. He was first greeted by his successor as head of the Chilean armed forces, General Ricardo Izurieta. President Ricardo Lagos, who had just been sworn in on 11 March, said the retired general's televised arrival had damaged the image of Chile, while thousands demonstrated against him.

In March 2000, the Congress approved a constitutional amendment creating the status of "ex-president," which granted its owner immunity from prosecution and guaranteed him a financial allowance. In exchange, it required him to resign from his seat of senator - for - life. Of the legislators, 111 voted for, and 29 (mostly, if not all, from the Left) against.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Juan Guzmán's request on August 2000, and Pinochet was indicted on 1 December 2000 for the "kidnapping" of 75 opponents in the Caravan of Death case. Guzmán advanced the charge of "kidnapping" as the 75 were officially "disappeared": even though they were all most likely dead, the absence of their corpses made any charge of "homicide" difficult.

However, in July 2002, the Supreme Court dismissed Pinochet's indictment in the various human rights abuse cases, for medical reasons (vascular dementia). The debate concerned Pinochet's mental faculties, his legal team claiming that he was senile and could not remember, while others (including several physicians) claimed that he was only physically affected but retained all control of his faculties. The same year, the prosecuting attorney Hugo Guttierez, in charge of the Caravan of Death case, declared that "Our country has the degree of justice that the political transition permits us to have."

Pinochet resigned from his senatorial seat shortly after the Supreme Court's July 2002 ruling. In May 2004, the Supreme Court overturned its precedent decision, and ruled that he was capable of standing trial. In arguing their case, the prosecution presented a recent TV interview Pinochet had given for a Miami based television network, which raised doubts about his alleged mental incapacity. He was charged with several crimes in December of that year (including the 1974 assassination of General Prats, and the Operation Colombo case in which 119 died) and was again placed under house arrest, on the eve of his 90th birthday. Questioned by his judges in order to know if, as President, he was the direct head of DINA, he answered: "I don't remember, but it's not true. And if it were true, I don't remember."

In January 2005, the Chilean Army accepted institutional responsibility for past human rights abuses. In 2006 Pinochet was indicted for kidnappings and torture at the Villa Grimaldi detention center by the judge Alejandro Madrid (Guzmán's successor), as well as for the 1995 assassination of the DINA biochemist Eugenio Berrios (himself involved in the Letelier case). Berrios, who had worked with Michael Townley, had produced sarin gas, anthrax and botulism in the Bacteriological War Army Laboratory for Pinochet; these materials were used against political opponents. The DINA biochemist was also alleged of having created black cocaine, which Pinochet then sold in Europe and the United States. The money for the drug trade was allegedly put directly into Pinochet's bank accounts. Pinochet's son Marco Antonio, who had been accused of participating in the drug trade, has denied claims of drug trafficking in his father's administration and announced a lawsuit for libel against Manuel Contreras, who had also claimed Pinochet sold cocaine.

On 25 November 2006, Pinochet marked his 91st birthday by having his wife read a statement written by him, and read to his admirers present for his birthday: "I assume the political responsibility of all that has been done." Two days later, he was again ordered to house arrest for the kidnapping and murder of two bodyguards of Salvador Allende who were arrested the day of the 1973 coup and executed by a firing squad during the Caravan of Death episode.

However, Pinochet died a few days later, on 10 December 2006, without having been convicted of any of the many serious crimes of which he was accused.

In 2004, a United States Senate money laundering investigation led by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Norm Coleman (R-MN) — ordered in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks — uncovered a network of over 125 securities and bank accounts at Riggs Bank and other U.S. financial institutions used by Pinochet and his associates for twenty-five years to secretly move millions of dollars. Though the subcommittee was charged only with investigating compliance of financial institutions under the USA PATRIOT Act, and not the Pinochet regime, Senator Coleman noted:

This is a sad, sordid tale of money laundering involving Pinochet accounts at multiple financial institutions using alias names, offshore accounts, and close associates. As a former General and President of Chile, Pinochet was a well known human rights violator and violent dictator.

Over several months in 2005, Chilean judge Sergio Muñoz indicted Augusto Pinochet's wife, Lucia Hiriart; four of his children — Marco Antonio, Jacqueline, Veronica and Lucia Pinochet; his personal secretary, Monica Ananias; and his former aide Oscar Aitken on tax evasion and falsification charges stemming from the Riggs Bank investigation. In January 2006, daughter Lucia Pinochet was detained at Washington DC - Dulles airport and subsequently deported while attempting to evade the tax charges in Chile. In January 2007, the Santiago Court of Appeals revoked most of the indictment from Judge Carlos Cerda against the Pinochet family. But Pinochet's five children, his wife and 17 other persons (including two generals, one of his former lawyer and former secretary) were arrested in October 2007 on charges of embezzlement and use of false passports. They are accused of having illegally transferred $27m (£13.2m) to foreign bank accounts during Pinochet's rule.

In September 2005, a joint investigation by The Guardian and La Tercera revealed that the British arms firm BAE Systems had been identified as paying more than £1m to Pinochet, through a front company in the British Virgin Islands, which BAE has used to channel commission on arms deals. The payments began in 1997 and lasted until 2004.

Furthermore, in 2007, fifteen years of investigation led to the conclusion that the 1992 assassination of DINA Colonel Gerardo Huber was most probably related to various illegal arms traffic carried out, after Pinochet's resignation from power, by military circles very close to himself. Huber had been assassinated a short time before he was due to testify in the case concerning the 1991 illegal export of weapons to Croatian army. The deal involved 370 tons of weapons, sold to Croatia by Chile on 7 December 1991, when the former country was under a United Nations' embargo because of the support for Croatia war in Yugoslavia. In January 1992, the judge Hernán Correa de la Cerda wanted to hear Gerardo Huber in this case, but the latter may have been silenced to avoid implicating Pinochet in this new case — although the latter was not anymore President, he remained at the time Commander - in - Chief of the Army. Pinochet was at the center of this illegal arms trade, receiving money through various offshores and front companies, including the Banco Coutts International in Miami.

Pinochet was stripped of his parliamentary immunity in August 2000 by the Supreme Court, and indicted by judge Juan Guzmán Tapia. Guzmán had ordered in 1999 the arrest of five militarists, including General Pedro Espinoza Bravo of the DINA, for their role in the Caravan of Death following the 11 September coup. Arguing that the bodies of the "disappeared" were still missing, he made jurisprudence which had as effect to lift any prescription on the crimes committed by the military. Pinochet's trial continued until his death on 10 December 2006, with an alternation of indictments for specific cases, lifting of immunities by the Supreme Court or to the contrary immunity from prosecution, with his health a main argument for, or against, his prosecution. The Supreme Court affirmed in March 2005 Pinochet's immunity concerning the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires, which had taken place in the frame of Operation Condor. However, he was deemed fit to stand trial for Operation Colombo, during which 119 political opponents were "disappeared" in Argentina. The Chilean justice also lifted his immunity on the Villa Grimaldi case, a detention and torture center in the outskirts of Santiago. Pinochet, who still benefited from a reputation of righteousness from his supporters, lost legitimacy when he was put under house arrest on tax fraud and passport forgery, following the publication by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of a report concerning the Riggs Bank in July 2004. The report was a consequence of investigations on financial funding of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. The bank controlled between USD $4 million and $8 million of Pinochet's assets, who lived in Santiago in a modest house, dissimulating his wealth. According to the report, Riggs participated in money laundering for Pinochet, setting up offshore shell corporations (referring to Pinochet as only "a former public official"), and hiding his accounts from regulatory agencies. Related to Pinochet's and his family secret bank accounts in United States and in Caribbean islands, this tax fraud filing for an amount of 27 million dollars shocked the conservative sectors who still supported him. Ninety percent of these funds would have been raised between 1990 and 1998, when Pinochet was chief of the Chilean armies, and would essentially have come from weapons traffic (when purchasing Belgian 'Mirage' air - fighters in 1994, Dutch 'Léopard' tanks, Swiss 'Mowag' tanks or by illegal sales of weapons to Croatia, in the middle of the Balkans war.) His wife, Lucía Hiriart, and his son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, were also sued for complicity. For the fourth time in seven years, Pinochet was indicted by the Chilean justice.

Pinochet is alleged to be responsible for various human rights abuses during his reign including murder and torture of political opponents. According to a government commission report that included testimony from more than 30,000 people, Pinochet's government killed at least 3,197 people and tortured about 29,000. Two - thirds of the cases listed in the report happened in 1973.

Private estimates differ slightly. Professor Clive Foss in The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption (Quercus Publishing 2006), estimates that in reality 1,500 – 2,000 Chileans were killed or disappeared during the Pinochet regime. In October 1979 the New York Times reported that Amnesty International had documented the disappearance of approximately 1,500 Chileans since 1973. The Australian The Age newspaper in 2008 ran a story that alleged that the real number of Chileans killed or reported missing and presumed dead are the 1,183 people whose names appear on a special memorial at the General Cemetery of Santiago. Critics of the Valech Report that concludes that up to 3,200 Chileans were killed or disappeared, claim that families are falsely stating that their relatives went missing during the 1973 – 1990 military regime, following reports that four people listed as killed or missing, were in fact alive or had died in unrelated circumstances. The cases have raised questions about the system of verification of dictatorship victims. Among the killed and disappeared during the military regime were at least 663 Marxist MIR guerrillas. The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, however, has only admitted 49 FPMR guerrillas killed but hundreds detained and tortured. 200,000 Chileans are claimed to have been forced to go into exile, particularly to Argentina and Peru, and applied for political asylum or received further guerrilla training in camps in Cuba, East Germany and elsewhere; however, some key individuals were followed in their exile by the DINA secret police, in the framework of Operation Condor, which linked military South American governments together against political opponents.

Pinochet suffered a heart attack on the morning of 3 December 2006, and subsequently the same day he was given the last rites. On 4 December 2006, the Chilean Court of Appeals ordered the release of his house arrest. On 10 December 2006 at 13:30 local time (16:30 UTC) he was taken to the intensive care unit. He died of congestive heart failure and pulmonary edema, surrounded by family members, at the Military Hospital at 14:15 local time (17:15 UTC).

Massive spontaneous street demonstrations broke out throughout the country upon the learning of his death. In Santiago, opponents celebrated at the Alameda avenue, while supporters grieved outside the Military Hospital. Pinochet's remains were publicly exhibited on 11 December 2006 at the Military Academy in Las Condes. During this ceremony Francisco Cuadrado Prats, the grandson of Carlos Prats, a former Commander in Chief of the Army in Allende's Government, murdered by Pinochet's secret police, spat on the coffin, and was quickly surrounded by supporters of Pinochet, who kicked and insulted him. Pinochet's funeral took place the following day at the same venue before a gathering of 60,000 supporters.