October 4, 2007 (LPAC)--The crimes committed by Chile's late fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, installed in 1973 by George Schultz and Felix Rohatyn, have certainly lived after him. On Oct. 4, Judge Carlos Cerda indicted and arrested Pinochet's widow Lucia Hiriart, his five children, and 17 other military and civilian collaborators, on charges of misuse of public funds related to the secret fortune that Pinochet stashed away in Washington, D.C.'s Riggs Bank.

Part of Pinochet's sizable fortune came from commissions paid to him by the British monarchy's BAE weapons cartel, which hired him to arrange arms purchases in several countries, and gave him a generous cut in exchange for his services. Judge Carlos Cerda documented the fact that Pinochet's "legitimate" sources of income--salary, pensions, investments, etc.--couldn't begin to account for the more than $20 million in assets he accumulated.

The bill of indictment charges 23 people with stealing public funds that were part of the Army's "reserve" budget, and depositing them in foreign accounts under phony names, or laundering them through the purchase and sale of real estate, among other illegal activities. Among those indicted are two retired Army generals who held executive positions at FAMAE, the military industries company that became Pinochet's personal vehicle for arranging deals with BAE and its subsidiary, Royal Ordnance. Former FAMAE director Gen. Hector Letelier Skinner was instrumental in setting up shell companies in British offshore financial havens that Pinochet used to hide his ill-gotten fortune.

Friedrich Schiller knew the erinyes would come for the British Empire.

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