Pinochet will leaves everything to his family

LATE CHILEAN DICTATOR Augusto Pinochet left all his worldly goods to his family, according to his will, which was made public today as part of a probe into the fortune he amassed in office.

When Pinochet died in 2006, aged 91, a legal investigation was ongoing into the whereabouts of an estimated $26 million (just over €20 million) that he had squirreled away, most of it believed to be hidden in scores of foreign bank accounts.

Pinochet, whose 17-year military dictatorship began with a 1973 coup, was never sentenced for the rampant abuses committed under his iron-fisted regime, during which an estimated 3,000 people were killed or went missing.

About $20 million (€15.9 million) of his fortune is thought to sit in bank accounts outside the country, with the rest either held as property or as cash in Chile.

The State Defense Council (CDE), the agency responsible for the legal defense of the Chilean state, had asked that the will be opened to pay off tax debts and future compensation for victims of his dictatorship.

A judge in April approved the request and ordered the will to be opened, rejecting requests from his family, which had asked that the document remain private.

The late dictator’s relatives claim to be struggling financially and his youngest daughter Jacqueline said in a recent interview that she had had to sell her jewellery and furniture in order to survive.

As the probe has uncovered Pinochet’s accounts, several have been frozen at the request of the Chilean state and it remains unclear if the family or the victims of his regime will end up getting most of the inheritance.

- © AFP, 2012

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