General Augusto Pinochet was indicted for human rights violations committed in his native Chile by Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón in 1998.

Authorised to return to Chile, Pinochet was subsequently indicted by judge Juan Guzmán Tapia and charged with several crimes.

His arrest in London made the front pages of newspapers worldwide; not only did it involve the head of the military dictatorship that ruled Chile between 1973 and 1990, it marked the first time judges had applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed in a country by former heads of state, despite the existence of local amnesty laws.

His 17-year regime was notorious for many human rights violations, some of which were committed as part of Operation Condor, an illegal effort to suppress left-wing political opponents in Chile and abroad in coordination with foreign intelligence agencies.

[2][3] In 1998, Pinochet, who at the time continued to wield considerable influence in Chile, travelled to the United Kingdom for medical treatment; allegations have been made that he was also there to negotiate arms contracts.

Grappling with the conditions set by Chile's turbulent transition to democracy, the coalition government known as Concertación and headed by President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle opposed his arrest, extradition to Spain, as well as trial.

In April 1999, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former US President George H. W. Bush called upon the British government to release Pinochet.

On the other hand, United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, Mary Robinson, hailed the Lords' ruling, declaring that it was a clear endorsement that torture is an international crime subject to universal jurisdiction.

[15] Despite protests by legal and medical experts from several countries, Straw finally ruled, in March 2000, that Pinochet had to be set free and authorized his return to Chile.

[18] President Ricardo Lagos, who had just been sworn into office on 11 March, said the retired general's televised arrival had damaged Chile's international reputation, while thousands held demonstrations against the ex-dictator.

That same year, the prosecuting attorney Hugo Guttierez, who headed the Caravan of Death case, declared that "Our country has the degree of justice that the political transition permits us to have.

Thereafter, he lived a quiet life, rarely made public appearances and was notably absent from events marking the 30th anniversary of the coup on 11 September 2003.

On 2 December, a Santiago Appeals Court stripped Pinochet of immunity from prosecution over the 1974 assassination of General Carlos Prats, his predecessor as Army Commander-in-Chief, who was killed by a car bomb while in exile in Argentina.

On 13 December, Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia placed Pinochet under house arrest and indicted him over the disappearance of nine opposition activists and the murder of one of them during his regime.

Later that year, on 14 September, the Supreme Court decided to strip Pinochet of his immunity in the Operation Colombo case involving the killing of 119 dissidents.

[34] Five days later, a Chilean court formally opened an investigation into Pinochet's finances for the first time, on allegations of fraud, misappropriation of funds and bribery.

On 1 October 2004, Chile's Internal Revenue Service ("Servicio de Impuestos Internos") filed a lawsuit against Pinochet, accusing him of fraud and tax evasion, for the amount of US$3.6 million in investment accounts held at Riggs between 1996 and 2002.

According to the State Defense Council, his hidden assets could never have been acquired solely on the basis of his salary as president, Chief of the Armed Forces, and Life Senator.

This tax fraud filing, related to Pinochet's and his family's secret bank accounts in the United States and in Caribbean islands, for an amount of US$27 million, shocked the pro-Pinochet wing of Chilean public opinion more than the accusations of human rights abuses.

Ninety percent of these funds would have been raised between 1990 and 1998, when Pinochet was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and would essentially have come from weapons traffic (when purchasing Belgian Mirage fighter aircraft in 1994, Dutch Léopard tanks, Swiss Mowag tanks or by illegal sales of weapons to Croatia, in the middle of the Balkan war; the later case has been linked by Chilean justice with the assassination of Colonel Gerardo Huber in 1992).

On 23 February 2006, Pinochet's wife Lucia Hiriart, children Augusto, Lucía, Jacqueline, Marco Antonio, and Maria Verónica, daughter-in-law, and personal secretary were indicted on charges of tax fraud, including failing to declare bank accounts overseas, and using false passports.

[38] Pinochet's wife, five children, and 17 other persons (including two generals, one of his ex-lawyer and his ex-secretary) were arrested in October 2007 on charges of embezzlement and use of false passports in the context of the Riggs affair.

[42] To appear to be defending Pinochet abroad was reportedly an uncomfortable situation, but this depended on considerations of the internal politics of Chile and in particular the governments relation with the Chilean Army.

[42] Minister of the General Secretary of Government Jorge Arrate, who had been an exile in the Netherlands[42] during the dictatorship saw positively on the news, while former president Patricio Aylwin considered that crimes committed in Chile should not be judged abroad.

[41][42] The polarized atmosphere the detention had caused in Chile is reported to have been detrimental to the Socialist Party's candidate for the 1999–2000 Chilean presidential election, Ricardo Lagos.

Fifteen years of investigations also revealed that Pinochet was at the center of an illegal arms trade organized around FAMAE (Factories and Arsenals of the Army of Chile), which received money from various offshore and front companies, including the Banco Coutts International in Miami.