The wives, children and brothers and sisters of the disappeared listened as the judge read out the names of the 13 Chileans and one Argentinian accused of kidnapping, arbitrary detention, torture and barbarous acts.

The 14 accused, most of whom were military officers during the Pinochet regime that lasted from 1973 to 1990, include Manuel Contreras, the former head of Chile'S Dina secret police.

Contreras is believed to have played a role in many of the 3,000 murders and disappearances in the "dirty war" against the left conducted during the Pinochet dictatorship.

He is currently serving life in a Chilean jail for assassinating the defence chief of leftist president Salvador Allende, who was toppled by Pinochet in a bloody US-backed coup in 1973.

The disappeared French are George Klein, who was a former advisor to Allende, a priest and two members of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR).

Pinochet was himself implicated in the disappearance of the four French citizens who vanished shortly after he came to power, but he died in 2006 without ever facing trial.

A verdict is expected on December 17. The accused, who are aged between 61 and 89, face life sentences if found guilty.

"It is important that those accused are convicted," Sophie Thonon, a lawyer for families taking a civil suit against the Chilean officials, said before the trial began.

"Of course, Chile does not extradite its nationals but Chile will be their prison and if they cross a border, they will be arrested," she said.

Hubert Pesle, the brother of Etienne Pesle, a former priest who disappeared in 1973 and who had been in charge of implementing Allende's rural reforms, said the families "need to finally have some elements of truth."

"We'd like to know what really happened," said the 88-year-old.

George Klein was arrested the day Pinochet's forces attacked Allende's presidential palace in the capital Santiago at the start of the coup.

Alphonse Chanfreau and Jean-Yves Claudet-Fernandez, the two members of the MIR, disappeared in 1974 and 1975 respectively.

"Their bodies were never found. The families were never able to mourn at their graves," said lawyer Thonon. "This trial is a way of accompanying them to a symbolic grave."

Claudet-Fernandez was detained in Argentina as part of Operation Condor, a programme in which Latin American intelligence agencies cooperated in the kidnapping of Chileans who had fled their country during the Pinochet regime.

The French trial is unusual in that the jury consists of three magistrates and is being filmed because of its "historical interest."

Wednesday's session was taken up with reading the charge sheet, with the individual disappearances to be examined on Thursday, ahead of witness testimony on Friday.

Pinochet died in December 2006 at a military hospital in Santiago, at the age of 91, after evading repeated attempts to bring him to trial.

Two weeks before his death, he took responsibility for actions committed under his rule, but never apologized for the suffering he caused.

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