SANTIAGO (AFP) - A Chilean judge ordered Augusto Pinochet to submit to a new round of medical and psychological tests, sources close to the process said, after the former dictator repeatedly showed fatigue during a 45-minute interrogation.
Investigating judge Juan Guzman Tapia, who has attempted to prosecute Pinochet for years, has come closer than anyone to bringing the retired general to trial.
With police standing watch outside, Guzman questioned the 88-year-old ex-dictator at Pinochet's home in the wealthy eastern Santiago neighborhood of La Dehesa on his his role in Operation Condor, a conspiracy of South America's 1970s military dictators to eliminate political opponents.
Guzman refused to confirm what the sources had said, but later said: "I had many questions to ask, but ... noted that he was very fatigued. I will resume the questioning."
Eduardo Contreras, one of the legal experts pushing forward the case against Pinochet, told AFP: "We are going to ask on Monday for Pinochet to be detained and put on trial."
Pinochet has yet to stand trial for any of the 3,000 officially documented cases of murder, torture and disappearance of opponents in regime custody who are assumed to have been murdered.
His attorney, Pablo Rodriguez, had tried to stop the questioning, arguing the general "is not in a condition to withstand something of that sort, and it is illegal" citing the health and age of the ex-dictator.
The El Mercurio daily reported that Pinochet had insisted he was innocent of all charges.
Chile's Supreme Court rescinded Pinochet's immunity from prosecution last month. Pinochet took power after a 1973 military coup and ruled the country with an iron fist until 1990.
The high court's ruling opened the way for him to stand trial for his part in Operation Condor, a plan by South American military regimes to eliminate their opponents and spirit their bodies away to other countries in the military network: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.
After the deposition, Guzman was to decide whether to charge Pinochet for the crimes committed by secret agents who were involved in Operation Condor.
It was Pinochet's second encounter with Guzman Tapia, who interrogated and charged him in 2001 in connecting with the "Caravan of Death" case," in which a band of officers roamed the country summarily executing suspected opponents shortly after the 1973 coup.
Pinochet was placed under house arrest for six weeks between February and March 2001, but in July 2002 he was declared mentally unfit by Chile's Supreme Court to stand trial on murder and kidnapping charges.
During Pinochet's 17-year rule, some 3,000 people, by official accounting, were murdered or "disappeared" while under state custody and are presumed to have been murdered.
Meanwhile, a Chilean legislator said Pinochet could face charges in the United States, after the US Senate revealed that Riggs Bank in Washington had managed secret multimillion-dollar bank accounts for the former dictator.
"He could be accused of money-laundering, drug-trafficking and all that," Deputy Edmundo Salas said. Salas recently visited Washington to learn more about the US Senate investigation. He said that the US Justice Department could take six to 12 months to build a case.
Chile's State Defense Council, which oversees government assets, said Pinochet's accounts in the US bank could total 16 million dollars. The council is investigating whether Pinochet embezzled the funds.