Pinochet is said to be suffering from dementia

Juan Guzman said he should be tried for his part in a drive against opponents of South American military regimes.

Hundreds disappeared in the Operation Condor campaign in the 1970s and 1980s.

General Pinochet, 88, has previously been stripped of his immunity from prosecution as a senator for life, but alleged dementia saved him from trial.

Trial unlikely

But lawyers representing victims of Chile's military dictatorship believe a recent television interview given by Mr Pinochet shows that the general is mentally fit.

One of Mr Pinochet's lawyers, meanwhile, has reportedly maintained that his client is in no state to deal with a trial.

It will now be up to Chile's court of appeal to decide.

Thousands disappeared under the military dictatorships

General Pinochet has had several close calls with the courts in the past, notably when he was arrested in Britain in 1998 on the orders of a Spanish judge, before being released on the grounds of ill-health.

In February, 2001, he was placed under house-arrest in Chile for six weeks before the country's Supreme Court declared him mentally unfit to stand trial on murder and kidnapping charges.

In October, the Supreme Court in Chile rejected an application that he be tried over the killing of 10 Communist Party members in 1976.

The ruling was seen as further confirmation he is highly unlikely to face court over human rights violations.

Operation Condor was the name given by military leaders in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to a continent-wide crackdown on left-leaning opposition supporters.

Many leftist opponents of the Pinochet regime fled Chile for neighbouring countries only to find themselves hunted down there.

Inquires into the operation initiated in 1975 have been carried out in other countries, including in Brazil and Argentina.

General Pinochet led a 17-year military government, under which more than 3,000 political opponents were killed.