MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pinochet's Family has been arrested for Tax Evasion

A judge in Chile has charged Lucia Hiriart, the wife of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, and four of their children, with fraud over millions of dollars held in secret bank accounts abroad.

Judge Carlos Cerda requested the house arrest of Ms Hiriart, 82, and the four offspring, Marco Antonio, Lucia, Jacqueline and Veronica. An appeals court will rule on the order.

The family's eldest sibling, Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, was charged with using a false passport, but he remained free after paying a 188-dollar bail that does not need an appeals court ruling.

The judge also charged General Pinochet's former personal secretary Monica Anania, a close aide Oscar Aitken and Maria Soledad Olave, the wife of General Pinochet's youngest son. All could face prison sentences if found guilty.

General Pinochet, now 90, is believed to have had US$27 million in secret overseas bank accounts in the United States and other countries.

The former strongman was hit with similar fraud charges over the accounts in November. The new charges relate to the failure to declare at least US$8 million.

All the Pinochets, except for the eldest son, have now been charged over the secret accounts and allegations of tax evasion.

The legal sources said the charges relate to claims the Pinochet family secretly transferred money into accounts in the United States, Switzerland and Panama, without properly declaring the funds to Chile's tax authorities.

An investigation by the US Senate uncovered the secret US accounts held at a branch of the then Riggs Bank in Washington. Publicity over the accounts sparked a fuller US inquiry and its takeover by a rival.

General Pinochet and his wife allegedly transferred US$3.2 million into the secret accounts without declaring their proceeds to Chile's tax authority.

Monday's charges represent the latest legal blow to General Pinochet, who was stripped of his immunity Friday in a separate human rights case, and his family.

General Pinochet faces a barrage of legal challenges, mainly seeking his prosecution on alleged rights abuses committed under his 1973-1990 rule.

Earlier this month, another court ruling stripped Pinochet of his immunity so he can be charged over two murders carried out by the "Caravan of Death," a band of soldiers who conducted extrajudicial killings in the months after the 1973 coup.

General Pinochet was charged last year in connection with "Operation Colombo," in which 119 leftists disappeared and are thought to have been killed in 1975.

General Pinochet stood down from the presidency in 1990 and had sought to use his legal immunity as a former president and his failing health to avoid trial for alleged crimes during his era in power.