A Chilean judge ordered the arrests of the widow and five children of the late Gen. Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, who died in 2006, and of 17 of his closest military and civilian collaborators for misappropriation of public funds on Thursday. "No one in Chile should believe that they can be above the law," Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said in Valparaiso for Radio Cooperativa. "This is a country with the rule of law, where justice has to do its job."

Judge Carlos Cerda has shown that the family and associates of Pinochet benefited from at least $20 million withdrawn from discretional funds allotted to the presidency, the office of the commander in chief, and the Casa Militar. The "Casa Militar" (Military House) was founded in 1981 of the dictator’s closest advisers. At least ten of those indicted are retired army officers.

The group of people who allegedly benefited from the money Pinochet stashed from public funds include: Juan McLean Vergara, a former military attaché in the United States; Mortimer Jofré, former head of army public affairs and a Pinochet private secretary; General Pinochet’s former accountant, Oscar Aitken; his personal secretary, Mónica Ananías; his lawyer and attorney general under his rule, Ambrosio Rodríguez; his cousin, Patricio Madariaga, former Chilean consul in Los Angeles; Lucia Hiriart Rodriguez, Pinochet's widow; and his five children.

Pinochet stashed money in the United States and in other overseas accounts, totaling tens of millions of dollars at least. He deposited at least $8 million in secret accounts at the Riggs Bank in Washington, which brought upon the bank fines of $16 million in March 2005 by a U.S. federal judge.

"We are going to appeal to the courts so that this (procedure) receives an exemplary sanction, because it is not possible that situations like this happen in Chile," said Pablo Rodriguez Grez, legal counsel for Pinochet's widow Lucia Hiriart, 84.

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte died in December 2006, after a dictatorship which spanned from 1973 to 1990. When he died there were some 300 criminal charges still pending against him in Chile for human rights abuses such as torture, forced disappearance, assassination, as well as for financial crimes such as tax evasion and embezzlement under his rule and afterwards.