PARIS (Reuters) - France is to try 17 Chileans in absentia over the disappearance of four French or French-Chilean nationals in Chile during the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet, the French state prosecutor's office said on Monday.
The 17, most of whom were military officers, will go ontrial on charges of "arbitrary detention accompanied, orfollowed, by torture and barbarous acts" in a period between1973 and 1975, it said.
Pinochet, who held power in Chile from 1973 to 1990, wasimplicated in the disappearance of the same four Frenchnationals but died in December 2006 without ever facing trial.
The accused, whose trial is scheduled to be heard in aParis court from May 19-23, include General Manuel Contreras,former head of the Dina secret police, and Paul Schaeffer, whoheaded a community called Dignidad that the Chilean oppositionsaid was used by Pinochet's secret police as a torture centre.
The four who disappeared are a former counsellor to leftistPresident Salvador Allende, who was overthrown by Pinochet in a1973 coup, a priest and two members of the Revolutionary LeftMovement (MIR).
The case against the 17 alleges that Georges Klein, thecounsellor, and priest Etienne Pesle were taken off to militarycamps in September 1973.
Prosecutors say MIR member Alphonse Chanfreau was torturedat the Dignidad camp, while Jean-Yves Claudet-Fernandez wasabducted in Buenos Aires as part of a wider operation againstChilean opposition members involving other Latin Americacountries.
"Despite the death of Augusto Pinochet, this trial willnonetheless be a posthumous judgment on not only the dictatorbut also the whole of his system of repression," a statement onbehalf of the families of the four victims said.
(Reporting by Thierry Leveque; Writing by RichardBalmforth; Editing by Alison Williams)
