MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pinochet's money, money, money?

Although the origin of millions of US dollars in secret foreign accounts remains unexplained, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet “hasn't stolen a single peso from anyone”, insisted this Monday in Santiago attorney Pablo Rodriguez.

Mr. Pinochet's lawyer openly denied reports published Saturday by The Washington Post regarding the discovery of yet more secret accounts supposedly opened by the dictator or members of his family in the Washington based Riggs Bank under such fictitious names as "Daniel Lopez" or "Ted Fox".

According to the Post which quotes an internal audit by Riggs, the total sum of these new accounts is 12 million US dollars, far more than the original estimate of 4 to 8 million which involved financial transactions between 1998/2002. The latest accounts allegedly date back to 1985 when Mr. Pinochet was ruling Chile.

However Mr. Rodríguez argued that the origin of the money in the first accounts exposed several months ago following a US congressional hearings report, had proven "legal".

"Everything is in order", he emphasized, nevertheless acknowledging that a tax evasion problem "might exist" and "will be consequently addressed". However Mr. Rodríguez emphatically denied the existence of any new accounts as revealed by the US press.

"I've told you once, I've told you ten times: General Pinochet hasn't stolen a single peso from anyone, least of all from the Chilean treasury".

Mr. Rodríguez also justified the possible use of fictitious names noting that "this is common practice in the United States, and I think it's legitimate and legal; appealing to a pseudonym isn't illegal unless it's proven that there is a cover up, embezzlement or bribery motive, which is not the case here".

The Washington Post reported that "Daniel Lopez" was the name used by Marco Antonio Pinochet, the General's son, in an e-mail to Riggs investigator B.J. Moravek.

Prosecution Attorney Alfonso Insunza said Monday that the latest discoveries "seem to leave no doubt that the General is guilty of illegal enrichment with public funds and therefore must be prosecuted for these crimes".

Besides being investigated for possible corruption charges, the 88 year old Pinochet has been charged for crimes committed during "Condor Operation", the name given to a coordinated effort by the Southern Cone military regimes in the seventies and eighties fro the elimination of opponents and dissidents.