JURIST - Paper Chase: Chile judge indicts Pinochet son, associates on tax evasion charges

[JURIST] A Chilean judge on Monday formally charged the youngest son, former secretary, and estate executor of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet [JURIST news archive; BBC profile] for maliciously making false or incomplete tax declarations. The charges relate to multi-million dollar accounts discovered in 2004 in the US-based Riggs National Bank [BBC report]. Lawyers for Marco Antonio Pinochet deny the charges. AP has more. La Nacion has additional coverage, in Spanish.

Pinochet's relatives have faced related tax evasion charges twice before. In January 2006, Pinochet’s wife, four of five children, daughter-in-law, and former secretary and lawyer were indicted [PDF text, in Spanish; JURIST report], but a year later the Santiago Court of Appeals dropped most of the charges [JURIST report]. In October 2007, 23 family members and former associates - including Pinochet’s wife, five children, former secretary, and three retired army generals - were indicted [JURIST report] on corruption charges for aiding Pinochet in the “misuse of fiscal funds” during his regime. The following month, the Supreme Court of Chile upheld an appeals court decision to drop the charges [JURIST reports] because the accused were not government employees at the time and thus could not be charged with embezzling government funds.

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