Chilean ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet lost a key appeal before the Supreme Court on Monday after he failed to persuade judges he should not face charges for the disappearance of leftists during his regime.
The decision means Pinochet, who ruled Chile for 17 years after leading a 1973 coup, must face the first of a series of human rights charges against him related to Operation Colombo, which involved the disappearance of 119 members of an armed revolutionary group in the mid 1970s.
The panel of five judges from the Santiago-based Supreme Court ruled three versus two to reject the defence argument that Pinochet's health problems, which include mild dementia caused by frequent mini-strokes, made him unfit to face a criminal process.
In the past five years, Chile's courts have thrown out three human rights cases against Pinochet because of his poor health, but some doctors on a new court-ordered medical panel have said he had exaggerated his symptoms.
Pinochet has been under house arrest since late November on other human rights charges.
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