SANTIAGO - The Santiago Court of Appeals has thrown out murder and kidnapping charges against General Augusto Pinochet, all in connection with the Caravan of Death assassination squad which allegedly killed 75 dissidents in the early months of his military rule.
But the judges ruled that the 85-year-old former dictatorof Chile could be tried for covering up criminal activities.
Prosecution lawyers are expected to challenge the decision in a higher court, and General Pinochet remains under house arrest in Bucalemu, his country home.
More than 210 cases are pending against the former head of the armed forces for human rights abuses committed during his 17 years in power.
General Pinochet's defence lawyers had objected, saying the homicide and abduction charges were "arbitrary, illegal, and unconstitutional", and that the ageing leader was too weak to stand trial.
Mandatory medical examinations in January indicated the general suffers from "moderate dementia" caused by strokes as well as chronic athritis and diabetes. He also wears a pacemaker.
Plaintiffs, activists and relatives of the regime's victims seemed frustrated by the new verdict, almost exactly a year after he returned from detention in Britain to face justice at home.
"This is shameful and shows the kind of courts we have," said Viviana Diaz, who heads an organisation representing the families of Chilean dissidents who were forcibly disappeared after being arrested by General Pinochet's security forces.
The government Truth Commission admits to more than 3,000 executions during the military dictatorship, yet General Pinochet's conservative supporters justify the violence by claiming Chile was caught in a defacto civil war at the time.
On national television, General Joaquin Lagos said a hit squad, acting on the personal orders of General Pinochet, committed atrocities against leftists. Firing squads were used for torture, he said, rather than to expedite death, the eyes of victims were gouged out and bodies dumped in the sea.
Carmen Hertz, a member of the prosecution team and the widow of a prominent leftist killed by the death squads, said: "We are not satisfied, of course, but the ruling still means that Pinochet is considered a criminal."
