Americas News
Authorities discover tons of gold belonging to Pinochet: reports
By DPA
Oct 25, 2006, 19:00 GMT

Santiago - Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet allegedly has at least 180 million dollars-worth of gold stashed at HSBC's regional bank in Hong Kong, authorities have discovered according to local media reports Wednesday.

Chilean Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley told Radio Cooperativa that 'the information is not yet official,' but he said the government had alerted judicial authorities.

'They will have to take precautionary measures quickly, since this information - if confirmed - would be very serious. The accounts in question would have to be frozen and the necessary legal proceedings would have to be undertaken,' Foxley said.

Pinochet, 90, who has been in and out of court as the country seeks justice for murders during his brutal rule, is already being prosecuted in a separate case connected to secret bank accounts.

Media reports said these new gold assets had not been uncovered in earlier domestic investigations for the so-called Riggs case, under which Pinochet allegedly kept around 26 million dollars in secret foreign accounts. Nor were the assets uncovered in a US Senate investigation that first brought the secret funds to light in 2004.

There was some discrepancy over the gold amount, with Chilean daily La Nacion reporting that the load consists of one thousand bars of gold with a value close to 180 million dollars. The daily El Mercurio said the gold deposit weighed 9 tons and had a value of more than 160 million dollars.

The Chilean Foreign Ministry was reportedly told of the gold's existence by Hong Kong authorities, and the information then passed to Judge Juan Gonzalez, who is currently leading the investigation into Pinochet's secret accounts.

That investigation has been on hold since August 25, after an Appelate Court in Santiago said it would hear a complaint filed by Pinochet's defence lawyers, who alleged that another judge involved in the case, Carlos Cerda, was not impartial.

Gonzalez admitted Wednesday that he is aware of the existence of the gold, although he could not immediately act to freeze the assets due to the Appelate Court decision.

Pinochet's defence counsel Pablo Rodriguez Grez said he would be the first to resign if his client had gold outside Chile, but he insisted the information is false.

Pinochet, now 90, has managed to sidestep conviction for several years through upper court rulings that have either upheld his immunity from prosecution or found he was too ill to stand trial.

But a landmark Supreme Court decision in September opened the way for Pinochet to be tried over tortures and disappearances that took place in the Santiago detention centre known as Villa Grimaldi during his 1973 to 1990 reign.

Thousands of civilians were arrested during the Pinochet years for political crimes. More than 3,000 'disappeared' and at least 30,000 were tortured in prison, according to a government-sponsored committee that gathered testimony from victims in 2004.

Pinochet is also currently being prosecuted for the so-called Operation Colombo, staged by the secret service DINA to cover up the killing of 119 leftists in 1974-75.