Santiago, Chile: Ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990 and spent his old age fighting human rights, fraud and corruption charges, died on Sunday, a week after suffering a heart attack, a military doctor said.
"He died surrounded by his family," Dr Juan Ignacio Vergara told reporters outside the hospital.
"Later this afternoon, we will give more details," he said.
One week after suffering a heart attack, the former general died, cheating attempts by Chilean prosecutors to imprison him on charges of human-rights abuses and tax evasion.
In death, Pinochet escaped justice as he had been due to face charges tax evasion and human rights abuses. In life, failing health kept him out of prison and the former Chilean dictator escaped justice for good on Sunday night, dying before he could be brought to account for atrocities committed under his regime.
Pinochet, 91, who was diabetic and had been in frail health for years, underwent bypass surgery after the December 3 heart attack. He was given Roman Catholic last rites and his son said the surgery had brought him back from the brink of death.
Pinochet was under house arrest at the time of his recent heart attack, accused in the deaths of two bodyguards of former Chilean President Salvador Allende, who he ousted in a coup. The charges were the latest in a series against Pinochet, who issued a statement last month on his 91st birthday suggesting he realised his death could be near.
"Today, close to the end of my days, I want to make clear that I hold no rancor toward anybody, that I love my country above all else," he said in a statement read by his wife on his 91st birthday last month. In the statement, he accepted 'political responsibility' for acts committed during his rule.
Pinochet grabbed power in a coup and went on to become the best known of the South American dictators of the 1970s and 1980s. Under his regime more than 3,000 people died in political violence, many at the hands of repressive secret police. He was accused of dozens of human rights violations but a lengthy effort to bring him to trial in Chile failed as his defense lawyers successfully argued that he was too ill to face charges. In 1997, British medical experts had diagnosed him with 'mild dementia' which had prevented his extradition/
Despite Pinochet's human rights record, many Chileans loved him and said he saved Chile from Marxism. But even many loyal supporters abandoned him after it came out in 2004 that he had stashed some $27 million in secret off-shore bank accounts that were under investigation at the time of his death.
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