Police Get Pinochet Prints, Mug

Chilean police took mug shots and fingerprinted former dictator Augusto Pinochet on Wednesday after his indictment in connection with the killing and disappearance of leftist opponents.

Judge Victor Montiglio requested the action to create a police file on the former strongman, court officials said. It was the first time courts had ordered his mug shots and fingerprints.

Separately, Montiglio supported bail for Pinochet, who has been under house arrest since November, although the motion must be ratified by the court of appeals. He set bail at $47,000.

Pinochet, 90, who ruled from 1973 to 1990, has been confined to his mansion in Santiago for a month in connection with Operation Colombo, in which 119 members of a leftist rebel group disappeared in the mid-1970s and are presumed dead.

Under Pinochet, 3,000 suspected leftists were “disappeared” or killed and 28,000 were tortured, the government says.