On 7 June, former Chilean President Augusto Pinochet had a day of victory and defeat. The victory was the Santiago appeal court's decision to end proceedings against him and his former interior minister, retired General Cesar Benavides, on charges relating to the repression of political opponents as part of Operation Condor. The defeat came from the plenary hearing at the same court, which lifted his political immunity in the case of the millions of dollars deposited in Riggs Bank in Washington, DC.
Sergio Munoz, the Chilean judge heading the investigation into the Riggs case, charged Pinochet with four offences: tax fraud, forging passports and documents of the under-secretariat of war, false declaration of assets in 1989 and acts of deception with regard to Spanish justice. In July 2004, a US Senate commission published a report on Pinochet's secret bank accounts at the Riggs. In Chile, the national tax office and state defence council immediately filed a complaint. Families of disappeared persons demanded compensation. Judge Munoz sequestered Pinochet's assets, estimated at 17 million USD, including 8 million USD in Riggs bank. However, Pinochet's lawyers have not finished prolonging the legal marathon: they can still ask the Supreme Court to maintain the immunity of the aging dictator.

In the Condor file, legal decisions have become entangled. The dismissal pronounced on 7 June was voted unanimously by judges in appeals chamber. Their decision was based on a 2002 Supreme Court ruling in the case of the Caravan of Death, the military unit that travelled throughout Chile and eliminated 73 political opponents in 1973. The judges there had ruled that "Pinochet's mental problems made him unfit to stand trial". This time, they argued that the decision to cross-examine him, made on 13 December 2004 by Judge Guzman, three months after the same Supreme Court lifted his immunity, "clearly undermines the binding force of the res judicata."

Counsel for the complainants, Eduardo Contreras, believes that "the chamber has taken a stance against the Supreme Court". He points out that "the Appeals Court lifted Pinochet's immunity in the Riggs case on the same day and the issue of mental health had absolutely no importance". For the victims' families, the paradoxical situation in which Pinochet loses his immunity in the Riggs case while the Condor case is dismissed is incomprehensible. Lorena Pizarro, who chairs the group 'parents of disappeared prisoners', sees this as an injustice in which "human life is valued at much less than economic crimes committed by Augusto Pinochet". She says that "Judge Guzman's investigation clearly demonstrates Pinochet's direct participation in the coordination of Operation Condor. We feel that using Pinochet's mental health again in order to avoid a trial is completely unfounded."

The complainants have announced they intend to appeal to the Supreme Court. If the case is admissible, it would effectively annul the appeals court dismissal. If it is not, lawyers would then file a motion for annulment before the same court. They are, however, confident that the first strategy will succeed. The legal battle continues. A trial in France?
French justice is edging closer to a trial in absentia of Augusto Pinochet and 18 other officers before the Paris courts. Judge Sophie Clément, in charge of investigations into the disappearance of five French nationals in Chile between 1973 and 1975, informed lawyers on 31 May that she has closed her investigation. The prosecutor now has to make his submissions to allow the judge to summon the accused before the Paris criminal court. "The trial will not open before 2006" says Sophie Thonon, one of the lawyers for the complainants.