NYTimes
By LARRY ROHTER
Published: February 7, 2005
IO DE JANEIRO, Feb. 6 - Things have been going so badly for Gen. Augusto Pinochet recently that he had rare grounds for satisfaction when a Chilean court last month ordered him released from house arrest. But his lawyers then had a new complaint: because his assets had been frozen in connection with another inquiry, he could not afford to post the required bond, they said.
Increasingly, General Pinochet finds himself entangled in a spider's web of interlocking investigations. Over the past few days, signs of progress have been registered in three different cases against him, and there is also the threat of a fourth complaint that would further tie up the ailing, 89-year-old former dictator's time and money.
When he was first detained in London in 1998 and his possible extradition to stand trial in Spain was being argued, human rights groups "used to say there was no chance he would ever be brought to trial in Chile because he was sacrosanct," recalled Sebastian Brett, the Chile representative of Human Rights Watch. "But now look at him. He's facing trouble on every front."
At the moment, General Pinochet seems most vulnerable over having lost his immunity from prosecution in the investigation into the assassination of Gen. Carlos Prats, a predecessor as commander of the Chilean Army. General Prats and his wife were killed in Buenos Aires in 1974, and the prime suspect has always been the secret police force that General Pinochet created shortly after seizing power on Sept. 11, 1973.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/international/americas/07chile.html
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