7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7president, the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, on
March 11, 1990.
As commander of the armed forces until 1998, Pinochet
frequently thwarted human-rights prosecutions against
members of the security forces. After stepping down, he
became a senator-for-life, a post granted to former presi-
dents under the 1981 constitution. Later in 1998, while
visiting London, he was detained by British authorities
after the Spanish government requested his extradition in
connection with the torture of Spanish citizens in Chile
during his rule. The unprecedented case stirred worldwide
controversy and galvanized human-rights organizations in
Chile. The United States and other countries were
prompted to release formerly classified documents con-
cerning Chileans who had “disappeared”—were kidnapped
and presumably killed by the Pinochet regime. The disclo-
sures brought to light details of Operation Colombo, in
which more than 100 Chilean leftists had disappeared in
1975, and Operation Condor, in which several South
American military governments coordinated their efforts
to systematically eliminate opponents in the 1970s and
1980s. In January 2000 Pinochet was allowed to return
home after a British court ruled that he was physically
unfit to stand trial. Nevertheless, he continued to face
investigations by Chilean authorities.
Later in 2000 Pinochet was stripped of his immunity
from prosecution—which he had enjoyed as a former
president—and ordered to stand trial on charges of human-
rights abuses (in Chile immunity is lifted on a case-by-case
basis). The charges were dropped in 2002, however, after
Chile’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling that he was men-
tally incapable of defending himself in court. Soon
afterward Pinochet resigned his post as a senator-for-life.
In 2005 he was again stripped of immunity and ordered to