SANTIAGO, Chile, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- France's foreign minister told officials in Santiago France is considering charging former dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, with human rights crimes.
On a visit to Chile, Dominique de Villepin said France is prepared to try the former military ruler in absentia for human rights violations committed against French nationals during the 1970s.
Domestic charges against Pinochet, 88, were dropped in 2002 when Chile's highest court ruled him unfit to stand trial due to dementia.
Official figures show more than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared under Pinochet's 17-year rule, which ended in 1990.
At least three French nationals disappeared while in custody in Chile in the early 1970s, the BBC reported.
"Several proceedings have been opened in France," de Villepin told reporters in Chile.
There have been efforts in Chile and elsewhere to prosecute Pinochet, most notably when he was arrested in Britain in 1998 on the orders of a Spanish judge.
He was eventually allowed home in 2000 after he was ruled too ill to stand trial.
