SANTIAGO, Nov. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- Chile's Appeals Court on Thursday cut the bail set for Augusto Pinochet, the country's president from 1973 to 1990, from 12 million pesos (22,600 US dollars) to 6 million pesos (11,300 dollars) in response to a defense request.

Augusto Pinochet (L) is helped as he loses his balance at the entrance of his home in Santiago August 9, 2000. (Reuters/File)

    Pinochet, who turns 90 on Friday, was put under house arrest Wednesday on charges of tax evasion, embezzlement, forging passports and documents in connection with a fortune of 27 million dollars hidden in foreign bank accounts, some under fake names.

    A US Senate investigation in June 2004 found that Pinochet had stashed 8 million dollars at the US bank Riggs. The Riggs case also implicates his wife, Lucia Hiriart, and his son Marco Antonio Pinochet.

    Other accounts have since been discovered in Britain, Gibraltar and other countries. Pinochet's lawyers said the money consists of legitimate donations, savings and investment proceeds.

    It's the fourth time in seven years that Pinochet was charged and arrested. The former dictator is also waiting to see whether he will be charged over the disappearance of 119 leftists in 1975,known as Operation Colombo.

    The former military dictator lost his immunity from prosecution in Operation Colombo in September.

    His poor health has derailed human rights cases up to now, but court-appointed experts recently found him mentally fit to stand trial for Operation Colombo, in which 119 members of the Revolutionary Leftist Movement disappeared from Chilean jails in 1975. Their bodies were later found in Argentina and Brazil.

    Pinochet recently told Judge Victor Montiglio, who was investigating the Colombo case that he had no knowledge of the operation.

    Pinochet recently underwent new medical exams to see whether he was well enough to face a criminal process.

    Although the judges found him fit to face prosecution, they didnot reject previous findings that he suffers mild dementia.

    Lorena Pizarro, head of the Coalition of Families of the Detained and Disappeared, complained that Pinochet was being tried for economic crimes and not the murder of opposition activists during his reign.

    Some Coalition members said the trials against Pinochet might be politically motivated as Chile is due to hold presidential elections on Dec. 11. Enditem