Chile’s Leader Attacks Amnesty Law

Gen. Augusto Pinochet died this month without ever being held legally accountable for human rights abuses that occurred during his dictatorship. But his subordinates are now facing a new threat: President Michelle Bachelet is pushing to invalidate an amnesty law that for nearly 30 years has exempted them from prosecution on murder and torture charges.

General Pinochet originally decreed the amnesty in April 1978, four and a half years after he seized power in the coup that overthrew an elected president, Salvador Allende. According to official reports of government commissions, his dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of at least 3,200 people, the bulk of which occurred before the amnesty edict, and the torture of 28,000 more.