Chilean appeals court orders "immediate" Pinochet booking
( 2001-05-29 10:10 ) (7 )

The Santiago Court of Appeals Monday ordered former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to immediately submit to mug shots and fingerprinting in anticipation of his trial for crimes committed during his regime.

The surprise unanimous decision by the three-judge panel comes on the heels of a May 16 ruling to postpone the booking of Pinochet for at least 15 days, a decision the court admitted Monday was an error, as there was nothing to impede it from going forward then.

The booking of the 85-year-old former strongman, under house arrest awaiting trial as an accessory to the murder and kidnapping of some 75 political foes in the weeks after the bloody coup that brought him to power in September 1973, would be an unprecedented event here involving a former head of state.

"I know nothing" of any efforts by the prosecution to bring the ailing Pinochet in for his profile and head-on mug shots and fingerprinting, Pinochet lawyer Gustavo Collao said.

An order by the appeals court to bring Pinochet in for booking had been postponed on two separate occasions in April at the request of the general's lawyers, who have argued he is too ill to face prosecution.

The former general has progressive diabetes and recurrent vascular problems, as well as mild dementia, according to a team of doctors who were ordered to conduct mental health exams ahead of any possible trial.

Pinochet was admitted Monday to the Military Hospital here, suffering from hypertension, the hospital said in a statement.

Judge Juan Guzman + who in May announced that a distant relation to the former general would not impede his impartiality + is presiding over some 250 complaints brought against Pinochet for the murder and disappearance of more than 3,000 people during his 17-year despotic regime.

Meanwhile Monday, the head of Chile's army, General Ricardo Izurieta, expressed confidence the courts would leave Pinochet alone.

"They will leave General Pinochet in peace, as it should be," Pinochet's successor as army chief said in remarks published in the daily La Tercera.