Chile's Pinera criticized for move to close luxury jail

Chile's president came under fire from his own supporters Friday after ordering the closure of a special prison for former military officers convicted of human rights abuses under dictator Augusto Pinochet.

President Sebastian Pinera on Thursday called for the transfer of 10 retired military officers out of Penal Cordillera, where they are serving time in the facility known for its preferential conditions.

Pinera said the move aims to satisfy "three principles that should rule all acts of government: equality before the law, the safety of inmates and better and more efficient operation of Chile's prison police."

"I do not believe it is an appropriate or justified measure," said Carlos Larrain, president of Pinera's National Renewal (RN) party, part of a governing alliance with the ultra-conservative Independent Democratic Union (UDI), which also criticized the closure.

The move has elicited a court filing seeking an injunction by one of the facility's most notorious prisoners.

Manuel Contreras, the feared head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA), led the political police that operated in the first and bloodiest years of Pinochet's dictatorship.

Contreras recently gave a media interview in which he bragged of the prison's conditions and amenities.

In seeking an injunction, Contreras laywers argued that the inmates' new prison is 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the military hospital where he undergoes dialysis three times a week.

Inmates are slated to be transferred to the Punta Peuco prison facility, where prisoners still receive preferential treatment but are held under more restrictive terms.

Pinochet's dictatorship lasted from 1973 to 1990 and left more than 3,200 dead or missing.