FORMER ALLENDE BODYGUARD COMFORTS MOURNING WOMAN NEXT TO FLOWER WREATH FOR ALLENDE, 1999-09-11 (photo)

Juan Cortez, a former bodyguard of late Socialist President Salvador Allende, embraces a crying woman next to a flower wreath with a picture of the Socialist President placed outside the presidential palace in Santiago, September 11, 1999. Allende was toppled by former Commander of the Army General Augusto Pinochet in a coup d'etat on September 11, 1973 ago and allegedly committed suicide the same day. Allende's bodyguards called themselves the "GAP", Grupo de Amigos del Presidente (Group of friends of the president) and according to one of them provided the president with a more trustworthy security than his regular police bodyguards. Today is the 26th anniversary of the coup and this is the first time that Pinochet is outside his homeland on the anniversary as he is currently under house arrest in London awaiting extradition proceedings to Spain. CD