Pinochet accused in tax fraud inquiry

[emad]

Reuters in Santiago
Saturday October 2, 2004
The Guardian

Chile's inland revenue service has filed a tax fraud complaint against the former dictator Augusto Pinochet after investigating multimillion-dollar offshore bank accounts that came to light in July.

Gen Pinochet's financial adviser, Oscar Aiken, was also named in the tax agency's complaint, announced yesterday. Details were not made public, but a spokesman said it was related to the law against making incomplete or false tax declarations.

The 88-year-old retired general, notorious for human rights abuses during his rule from 1973 to 1990, was widely believed to have been honest in handling public monies until a financial scandal broke in July.

Judge Sergio Munoz was assigned to investigate Gen Pinochet's finances after a US Senate committee found that the Washington-based Riggs Bank had held up to $8m from 1994 to 2002 in secret accounts for the former dictator.
More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,13755,1318020,00.html

[emad]

1. From The Independent:

Pinochet faces fraud charges over secret £4.4m accounts
By Jen Ross in Santiago
02 October 2004
Snip:
He is also the defendant in hundreds of different human rights cases after he was recently stripped by the Chilean Supreme Court of his immunity from prosecution. The latest lawsuit comes after a US senate report revealed he was keeping secret accounts with up to $8m (£4.4m) at the Riggs National Bank, based in Washington DC.

Chile's internal tax service alleges that General Pinochet filed "false or maliciously incomplete tax declarations". If found guilty he could face up to five years in prison.

The US senate report said Riggs took pains to hide the money for General Pinochet, especially during the late 1990s when a Spanish judge issued an international warrant for his arrest on human rights charges and tried to freeze his assets.................

Also named in the lawsuit is Oscar Aitken Lavanchy, the executor for General Pinochet's will, who has represented General Pinochet in his financial dealings with Riggs.
More:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=568037

[emad]

2. BBC News:

According to Chile's La Nacion newspaper, Gen Pinochet could now face a fine amounting to 300% of the tax evaded and a sentence of up to five years in prison.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3708346.stm

[Judi Lynn]

3. Sure hope he doesn't slip away again this time.

He has been one lucky bloodthirsty, vicious, U.S.-supported dictator.



But, you know, it's like he says he's real sorry! Oh, sir, now you've got us weeping, too!

[acmavm]

4. Wouldn't it be a hoot if they finally imprisoned Pinochet on tax evasion

charges. All the deaths that he caused and for which he should pay, and tax evasion may be the way they get his ass.

Shades of Al Capone.

[emad]

5. Capone:

"The chance of conviction is quite high," said Mr Mendes. "Some of the most ignoble people in history have been caught more on financial matters - Al Capone, for example. It's little known, but he was finally put away on tax evasion instead of how many people he killed in his life as a gangster."

[struggle4progress]

6. kick for the long ugly shadow of Nixon and Kissinger

:kick:

[Judi Lynn]

7. Speaking of Kissinger, a new story.......

Kissinger threw tantrum over US slight to Pinochet
By Diana Jean Schemo in Washington
October 2, 2004


In 1976, three months after the military seized power in Buenos Aires, Henry Kissinger, then US secretary of state, learned that the US ambassador, Robert Hill, had just cautioned Argentina's new government over its violations of human rights. But Dr Kissinger was unhappy with the warning. "In what way is it compatible with my policy?" he asked his top official for Latin America, Harry Shlaudeman.

"It is not," Mr Shlaudeman replied. "How did it happen?" Dr Kissinger asked. "I will make sure it doesn't happen again," Mr Shlaudeman promised.

Dr Kissinger asked who had given the ambassador the instruction to lodge his complaint. "I want to know who did this and consider having him transferred." The exchange comes from 3216 transcripts of telephone conversations, released 27 years after Dr Kissinger stepped down. The transcripts, obtained by the non-profit National Security Archive, document Dr Kissinger's reluctance to forcefully demand that military dictators in Chile and Argentina uphold civil liberties as they eliminated left-wing foes.

Dr Kissinger previously spoke little about human rights in Latin America, except to say he discussed the subject at a 1976 meeting with General Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean leader. The transcripts show Dr Kissinger growing enraged by the then deputy ambassador to the Organisation of American States, Robert White, in 1976. The Washington Post had just reported that Mr White had passionately defended a human rights report that criticised Chile. In the transcript, Dr Kissinger says Mr White "lashed out at the Chileans down there".

"I think I have made it very clear what my strategy is," Dr Kissinger says. "I have not become a super liberal. This is not an institution that is going to humiliate the Chileans. It is a bloody outrage. Why don't we get him out?"

Mr White said this week that he had threatened to quit unless the reprimand was withdrawn. The next day it was.
(snip/...)

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/01/1096527940335.html
(Free registration required)

[struggle4progress]

8. Thanks! I had seen a different version of this story but not this one. eom