MADRID (CNN) - A Spanish judge issued an order Thursday requesting authorities in the United States file criminal charges against the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C. and its officers for concealing millions of dollars belonging to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, according to an attorney for the alleged victims of Pinochet's regime.
A court official also confirmed that Judge Baltazar Garzon had issued his ruling making the request.
Attorney Juan Garces told CNN that Garzon also asked the United States to embargo $10.3 million that the bank may be holding. Garzon was acting on a request filed with his court by Garces on behalf of the victims.
The order, said Garces, informs U.S. officials if they do not act, Spanish officials will press charges of money laundering and concealing assets against the bank and its executives.
In July, the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report saying Pinochet's accounts at Riggs from 1994 to 2002 contained between $4 million and $8 million.
Garzon in 1998 issued an arrest warrant for Pinochet, along with an order freezing his assets.
"Pinochet - one - was about torture and crimes against humanity," Garces said, referring to earlier unsuccessful efforts to try Pinochet for genocide and torture. "Pinochet - two - is about the money the criminal made and hid. It's the same case, in two facets, and in both, the key is international judicial cooperation," Garces said.
The Senate report said Riggs Bank "resisted" regulatory oversight of the Pinochet accounts, "despite red flags involving the source of Mr. Pinochet's wealth, pending legal proceedings to freeze his assets and public allegations of serious wrongdoing by this client."
The Senate report also described other Riggs accounts under scrutiny that had been held by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington and, separately, by the leader of the small oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea.
President George Bush has promised a full investigation into the allegations of wrongdoing involving Riggs Bank and Pinochet's accounts.
Pinochet seized power in Chile in 1973 in a coup and ruled until 1990. He was arrested in October 1998 in London on a warrant issued by Garzon, who charged him with genocide, terrorism and torture in the deaths and disappearance of thousands of people, including some Spaniards, during his regime.
Garzon also issued an order in October 1998 to freeze Pinochet's assets as a guarantee, Garces said, that victims would receive indemnity payments if Pinochet were ever convicted in court.
After a lengthy legal battle, Britain permitted Pinochet to return home to Chile in 2000, rather than face extradition to Spain, on the grounds that he was unfit to stand trial.
Garces represents a class action suit, both criminally and civilly, by alleged victims of Pinochet, in addition to about 100 individuals or organizations with specific claims against him.
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