Chilean President Ricardo Lagos on July 17 asked the State Defense Council (CDE) to investigate possible secret bank accounts of former leader Augusto Pinochet.

The CDE received a report made by a commission of the US Senateas part of an

investigation on Riggs Bank, based in Washington, D.C.

According to the Senate report, Riggs helped Pinochet hide millions of dollars when he was detained in Britain in 1998.

Pinochet deposited between 4 million to 8 million US dollars in his Riggs accounts from 1994 to 2002, violating US anti-money-laundering safeguards, the report said.

According to the report, the bank referred to Pinochet as a "retired pensioner" and with a "high-ranking position in the public sector for many years."

Although the government was unable to order the CDE to conduct the investigation, it is necessary for lawyers to analyze whether legal proceedings could start against Pinochet, Lagos was quoted as saying.

Chile hired Claudio Grossman, dean of the American University, as an attorney to study the report of the US Senate and determine its legal repercussion.

The government decided to provide the relevant information to the CDE in order to send a message that the country is determined to carry out the investigation on the secret accounts.

"Our problem is not whether these accounts were under this or that name, but why these accounts were created, who generated them and whether or not there are other accounts, and so on," Chilean Interior Minister Jose M. Insulza said.

"All this has to be found out and we are going to do it with tranquility," Insulza said.

Pinochet, 88, who took control of Chile by ousting constitutional President Salvador Allende in 1973, was arrested in London on Oct. 16, 1998, after Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon issued an arrest warrant to have him extradited to Spain for charges of torture, terrorism and genocide. He was later released on grounds of poor health.

He and his security agents face hundreds of charges of homicide, kidnapping and torture in Chile but none of corruption, despite the fact that Pinochet owns a mansion in Santiago and at least four other properties in the country.

There have been several failed attempts to probe his finances by journalists or lawmakers since the 1980s.

Source: Xinhua