Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 1998 News

Chilean dictator from 1973 to 1990, was arrested in a London hospital in October while recovering from surgery on a herniated disk. He was charged by a Spanish magistrate on grounds of murder, kidnapping, and torturing political opponents while he was in office. Allegedly to blame for up to 4,000 murders in Chile and abroad, the autocrat disingenuously claimed to know little of the excesses that went on under his watch. Spain's warrants were put on hold as the British House of Lords debated whether Pinochet was entitled to immunity from prosecution before deciding that he was not.