MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bachelet to visit torture camp

President Bachelet was held at Villa Grimaldi, a house on the outskirts of the capital Santiago, with her mother in 1975 during Augusto Pinochet's rule.

Villa Grimaldi is now a memorial to the hundreds of prisoners who were tortured by the Chilean secret police there.

Under General Pinochet's government about 3,000 people were "disappeared" or killed for alleged communist links.

The former leader is currently facing a series of human rights charges related to his time in office.

Her father, an air force general, was killed by Gen Pinochet's government for opposing the coup which brought him to power.

"I know I will walk where I walked before, where my mother walked, and I also know that the questions I always ask will be stronger than just a whisper," she told a gathering of Chilean historians. "How could that happen? Was there something we could have done to avoid it? Are we now finally a society built on mutual respect?"

She said the visit would occur on Saturday.