Spain to ask for seizure of Pinochet's assets

Spain will ask Chile to implement a distress resolution issued in 1998 by Spanish Courts on the assets of former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet and his family members, a lawyer said on Monday.

Spanish judicial authorities are negotiating in the United States on the seizure of 8 million US dollars found in Pinochet's accounts in Washington-based Riggs Bank, which would be allocated to compensate over 4,000 victims of the regime that governed Chile from 1973 to 1990, Juan Garces said in a radio interview.

The lawyer said a charge for the concealment of assets and money laundering had been opened in Madrid against Riggs Bank, its executive body and others who had contributed to hiding Pinochet's money.

Baltazar Garzon, a Spanish High Court judge, also asked for thehelp of the Bank of Spain and the authorities in Britain, the United States and the Bahamas in tracking down and freezing any assets Pinochet held directly or indirectly in these countries, said Garces.According to a US Senate investigation into Riggs Bank in July,up to 8 million dollars were found in secret accounts of the former dictator.Garces was an advisor to constitutional President Salvador Allende, who was ousted in a coup in 1973.

The lawyer played an important role in a complaint to the Spanish courts welcomed by Garzon, who has been pursuing the retired general since 1998. Garzon won international fame with a bid to extradite Pinochet from Britain to stand trial for torture and other charges.

Garces said last week that Spain passed the distress resolution in 1998 to search for 50 or 100 million dollars which Riggs bankers said were Pinochet's assets.

The resolution said that as Pinochet's money had been accumulated from a crime, all of his assets can be affected by the seizure order to define his responsibilities in terrorism, genocide and torture crimes.

Pinochet, who took control of Chile by ousting Allende in 1973,faces hundreds of charges of homicide, kidnapping and torture in Chile.

Source: Xinhua