President Bush Welcomes Continued Investigations into Riggs Bank - 2004-07-20

President Bush has promised that a thorough investigation will be conducted regarding whether Riggs Bank in Washington helped Augusto Pinochet, the former dictator of Chile, to hide his wealth and evade efforts to confiscate it. Mr. Bush made this promise on Monday during a joint press conference with Ricardo Lagos, the President of Chile. Mr. Bush stated that the investigation into Riggs Bank will be completely transparent. A U.S. Senate subcommittee released a report last week detailing a series of questionable transactions between Riggs Bank and General Pinochet. The report indicated that in 1998, following Pinochet's arrest in London on charges of crimes against humanity, Riggs Bank assisted him in concealing his wealth from Chilean authorities. Despite the controversy that has arisen between the U.S. and Chile on this matter, leaders of both countries assert that relations between Washington and Santiago remain strong. The presidents of the U.S. and Chile also discussed the situation in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, on the eve of a conference of donor countries at the World Bank in Washington.