Pinochet Under Attack After Critic’s Arrest Communist Called Former Chilean Dictator ‘Psychopath’

Political controversy flared anew around Gen. Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday as Chilean leaders condemned the arrest of a leftist leader whom the former Chilean dictator accuses of defaming him.

Gladys Marin, secretary-general of the Communist Party, was being held in a women’s prison in the Chilean capital, Santiago, after repeating her statements that Pinochet is a “psychopath and blackmailer” responsible for murders and torture during his 17-year reign.

Marin’s husband was among more than 3,000 people who, according to a government investigative commission, were killed by security forces after Pinochet’s coup in 1973. Pinochet and his supporters say he fought an unavoidably violent war to save the nation from leftist extremists.

Four carloads of plainclothes police agents arrested Marin on Tuesday on a busy boulevard. She is charged with defaming the commander of the armed forces, a post that Pinochet retains seven years after Chile’s return to democratic rule.

Critics called the arrest of Marin, 55, a calculated display of strength by Pinochet, showing that Chile’s transition to democracy is incomplete.

They said the aggressive police operation - the agents surrounded Marin’s car - was unjustified and that it recalled the marauding secret police of the dictatorship.

“The world has been turned upside down,” said Sen. Sergio Bitar, a leader of the ruling center-left coalition, who visited Marin in prison Wednesday. “The person who says there were crimes during the dictatorship is charged.”

Pinochet, 80, wields considerable influence through his appointees in the judiciary and eight of the 40 Senate seats. His regime passed laws shielding the military from human rights prosecutions and preventing the removal of top commanders by the president. The government of President Eduardo Frei is trying to change those laws.