Pinochet's daughter 'drops US asylum claim'
The daughter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has dropped her request for asylum in the US, a government official says.
In Chile, a government spokesman said Lucia Pinochet was being flown to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The official said if the government allowed Pinochet to drop her request, she would probably be ordered out of the country.
Pinochet, 60, was detained on Wednesday when she arrived at Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, on a flight from Argentina. She requested asylum on the grounds that she feared arrest if returned to Chile. She faces tax evasion and other charges in her home country.
In Chile’s capital, Santiago, presidential spokesman Osvaldo Puccio said the US government had notified Chile that Pinochet was being flown to Buenos Aires on Friday night.
The decision was made by US officials, Puccio said. He said the Chilean government did not intervene because “this is a case in the police and judicial fields, and it should remain there”.
On Wednesday, Suzanne Trevino, a spokeswoman for US Customs and Border Protection at the Department of Homeland Security, said asylum seekers refused admission to the US were put on flights to the country from which they had left.
“The government’s interest is that the Chilean law be respected and this Chilean citizen appears before the judge,” Puccio said. Judge Carlos Cerda, who indicted Pinochet on tax evasion and false passport charges, had issued a subpoena for her to appear in court on Monday, but she left without going to court.
Puccio said the government did not know when Pinochet’s daughter would finally arrive in Chile. “When that happens she will appear before the judge, and he will decide what will happen,” he said.
Pinochet, the eldest daughter of the 90-year old former president, had been served with a subpoena over the weekend in Chile, along with her mother and three siblings.
She ignored an order to appear in court on Monday, but the four other family members made court appearances.
Chilean officials have said Pinochet is not entitled to asylum because that status should not apply to citizens of countries where the rule of law prevails.
Her father faces charges for alleged financial crimes and human rights abuses committed during his 17-year rule, from 1973 to 1990.
In a statement published by a Santiago newspaper, the daughter said: “I am sorry that the instruments of the state are being used with the purpose of defaming and discrediting the honour of the people.
“They don’t seek to clarify the source of my father’s funds, but instead some seek the total defamation of each and every member of my family.”
