Ex-dictator faces new charges

More than 3,000 people were killed under his regime, the government says.
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was indicted on human rights charges Thursday and placed under house arrest, hours after he made bail on unrelated corruption charges filed only a day earlier.
In a widely expected decision, Judge Victor Montiglio charged Pinochet in connection with the kidnapping and disappearance of six dissidents in the early years of his 1973-90 dictatorship, his office said.
Judge Montiglio sent a court secretary to Pinochet's Santiago mansion to inform the general of the charges, which will force him to spend his 90th birthday today under arrest. The judge did not grant Pinochet bail.
There was no immediate comment from Pinochet's lawyer, Pablo Rodriguez.
Latest indictment
The new indictment has to do with the disappearance of six dissidents arrested by Pinochet's security services in late 1974. They were among 119 people, some of whose bodies were found in Argentina, who disappeared in a case known as Operation Colombo.
The Pinochet government claimed at the time that the dissidents were killed in clashes involving rival armed groups opposed to him.
Friends and relatives had planned a luncheon at Pinochet's house to celebrate his birthday but were canceling the event. "I doubt the boss will be in a mood to attend," Pinochet's spokesman, retired Gen. Guillermo Garin, told The Associated Press.
Pinochet was indicted and put under house arrest Wednesday by another judge, Carlos Cerda, on charges of tax evasion and corruption. Early Thursday, the Santiago Court of Appeals granted Pinochet freedom on an $11,500 bond.
A government lawyer had asked the court to increase the bail substantially, saying Pinochet was not a poor man and continued to have access to funds. But defense lawyers said the retired general has no money because his accounts have been frozen.
The judge who preceded Judge Cerda in the case, Sergio Munoz, estimated Pinochet's overseas fortune at $23 million.
The overseas accounts were first reported in a U.S. Senate investigation of Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., where Pinochet kept $8 million.
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