The 9-8 vote by the Supreme Court upheld a May 28 decision by the Santiago Appeals Court to remove the immunity granted Pinochet as a former head of state in a human rights case involving Operation Condor, a top-secret program among several South American countries that coordinated repression of political opposition in the 1970s and '80s.

With this decision, the 88-year-old retired general may finally  face trial for the elimination of the left wing in Chile during his 17-year regime.

The news was received with joy by nearly 50 relatives of disappeared individuals and human rights attorneys awaiting the result inside the Supreme Court building.

Interior Minister Jose Miquel Insulza asked people to take the Supreme Court decision with calm.

"The trial will continue, and the judge in charge will have to take the appropriate decision, and in the meantime we won't make any comment," he said.

Pinochet, who took control of Chile by ousting constitutional President Salvador Allende in 1973, faces hundreds of charges of homicide, kidnapping and torture in Chile. He has been out of office since 1990, but has remained untouchable in the courts during six years of back-and-forth rulings in scores of cases.

He was arrested in London in 1998 on an extradition request from Spain to face four genocide charges, but Britain eventually allowed him to return to Chile 17 months later on grounds of poor health.

Chile's Supreme Court decision comes after it had ruled in 2002that proceedings against the former general in the Death Caravan case be permanently suspended, claiming the dictator was affected by progressive and incurable mental insanity.