Chile's second highest court agreed on Tuesday to hear a new bid to strip ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet of his immunity from prosecution and try him for human rights crimes, court officials said.

The Santiago Appeals court accepted a recommendation from one of its members, Judge Juan Guzman, to consider a request by lawyers representing families of nine disappeared leftists to remove the 88-year-old retired general's immunity and have him undergo new health tests.

No date has been set for the hearing.

Previous attempts have failed to bring Pinochet to trial for cases stemming from his 1973-1990 rule during which some 3,000 people were killed or disappeared.

Chile's Supreme Court halted a trial of Pinochet in 2001 on grounds he was mentally unfit after court-ordered medical exams showed he suffered a mild form of dementia brought on by minor strokes.

Since then, human rights groups have tried to keep their accusations against Pinochet alive in the courts.

Each time a new case is brought against him, prosecutors must ask courts to strip him of the immunity he enjoys as a former president and then argue the issue of his mental fitness.

Pinochet's defense lawyer predicted the latest case would fizzle.

A recent television interview of Pinochet that aired in Miami prompted human rights lawyers to charge that he was neither senile nor forgetful.

Pinochet, who suffers from diabetes and has a pacemaker, is rarely seen in public.

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