Pinochet has heart attack

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet is in a satisfactory condition after undergoing surgery following a heart attack but is still seriously ill, a hospital doctor said late last night.

Dr Juan Ignacio Vergara told reporters the 91-year-old Pinochet's medical team were not considering carrying out a further operation for the moment because it would be extremely risky.

Pinochet, the former Chilean general accused of torture, killings and other abuses during his 17-year dictatorship, suffered a heart attack yesterday and underwent emergency surgery.

Pinochet, who faces numerous charges related to his iron-fisted 1973-90 rule, was rushed to a hospital in the capital Santiago at about 2 a.m. (0500 GMT), family and hospital officials said.

He was given the Roman Catholic last rites - traditionally administered by a priest to the dying - before surgeons subjected him to an angioplasty to unblock clogged arteries.

Local media said Pinochet underwent a second operation later in the day but a spokesman for the former President said it was simply a post-surgical check and denied he was undergoing a bypass.

Pinochet's son, Marco Antonio Pinochet, said his father was in a "pretty serious state" and that the doctors decided to operate "to practically bring him back from death".

"We're in the hands of God and the doctors," he said. He described the operation on his father as a bypass but doctors said this was not the case.