THE former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was rushed to hospital yesterday after suffering a mild stroke, just as a court was due to decide whether to put him on trial for human rights abuses during his 17-year reign, writes Imre Karacs.

Officials at the army hospital in Santiago, the Chilean capital, said the stroke had left Pinochet, 89, with “impaired mobility and a neurological deficit”. He was said to be in a stable condition and was expected to make at least a partial recovery.

“This morning he was eating breakfast and felt bad,” said his spokesman, Guillermo Garin, a retired general. “The doctor got worried and decided to take him to the hospital, where he is being examined, because it could be a stroke.”

Pinochet has suffered a succession of minor strokes in recent years. He has also been diagnosed with mild dementia, diabetes, arthritis and been fitted with a pacemaker.

However, he often checks into hospital on the eve of court hearings into one of the dozens of human rights cases pending against him. The next hearing is tomorrow.

Pinochet ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990 after overthrowing the socialist president Salvador Allende. At least 3,000 people died or disappeared and more than 27,000 were tortured in the political terror that marked his rule.

There have been several attempts to put him on trial — notably in Britain in 1999 — all foiled by his frail health. But earlier this month the Chilean judge Juan Guzman formally charged Pinochet with murder and kidnapping over the deaths and disappearances of 10 people in Operation Condor, a purge jointly conducted by various South American dictatorships in the 1970s.

Guzman decided to charge Pinochet despite medical reports showing his dementia has worsened in recent years. Two years ago Chile’s supreme court ruled that Pinochet was unfit to stand trial in another human rights case because of his mental frailty.

Pinochet’s lawyers have filed an injunction against Guzman’s charges, and the Santiago appeals court is expected to rule on that tomorrow.

Pinochet has never stood trial in any human rights case, though he has been stripped of his immunity from prosecution in three separate cases, the latest over his role in Operation Condor.

A few minutes after Pinochet’s heavily guarded motorcade arrived at the hospital, his wife, Lucia Hiriart, and General Emilio Cheyre, the army commander, were also seen entering.

Although marginal in Chilean politics today, Pinochet still enjoys strong support in the armed forces.

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