MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean leader: 'No one in Chile is above the law'.

Chile's President Ricardo Lagos said Tuesday that no one in the country is above the law when asked whether former dictator Augusto Pinochet should face prosecution for abuses during his 17-year rule.

Earlier this month, the Santiago Court of Appeals ruled in favor of stripping Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution, a privilege he enjoys as a former president, saying it believes he knew of repression during his time in office from 1973 to 1990.

The ruling increased the possibility that the 88-year-old former strongman will be tried for abuses.

Lagos was asked at a news conference at the United Nations whether as a Chilean citizen he believed there should be a Pinochet trial, or whether he believed that Pinochet should be above the law.

"No one in Chile is above the law," he said. "We all have to respond to what we've done, according to the law, and I think that here as in any other case -- and I'm saying this not only as a citizen but as a president -- our institutions must operate properly."

Later, Lagos noted that "the tribunals function in Chile" and "the judiciary is independent from the executive power as it should be, so I'm not supposed to make any comments."

According to a recent U.S. Senate report, Riggs Bank, an old-line Washington institution with a virtual monopoly on business with the capital's diplomatic community, helped Pinochet hide accounts containing nearly US$8 million between 1994 and 2002.

Lagos said the independent body that examines "the situation of Chile's patrimony was investigating the evidence" in the Congressional report. The State Defense Council, an autonomous agency in charge of the legal defense of the Chilean state's interests, is trying to determine where Pinochet got the money.

In Chile, a court on Tuesday appointed a renowned investigative judge, Sergio Mono, to probe Pinochet's accounts.

Earlier, the top state prosecutor said investigators from her office were trying to determine from where Pinochet garnered the money, which he deposited from 1998 to 2004, according to a report by the U.S. Senate.

His oldest daughter, Lucia Pinochet Hiriart, said Tuesday in Santiago the money came from donations by "Chilean and foreign businessmen" before and after the 1988 recall which forced Pinochet to give up power to civilians in 1990.