The former president of Chile, Patricio Aylwin, has died aged 97 of natural causes, his family says.
Patricio Aylwin was key in setting up a commission which investigated human rights abuses committed during the Pinochet era.
Gen Pinochet quit and Patricio Aylwin won the first post-dictatorship election. He assumed power in a tense handover ceremony on March 11, 1990.
As president(March 11,1990 - March 11,1994), arguably his greatest achievement was to set up the Rettig Commission, which investigated human rights abuses from the dictatorship era.
The commission had to tread carefully - the military was still a powerful force.
But under a mandate from Patricio Aylwin, it drew up a comprehensive list of names of thousands of people who were kidnapped, tortured and killed during the Pinochet years.
The Chilean government has declared three days of official mourning.
About Patricio Aylwin Nov 26,1918 - April 19,2016
Patricio Aylwin Azócar was born in Viña del Mar, Chile, on Nov. 26, 1918. He studied law at the University of Chile and spent many years as a professor of administrative law at his alma mater and at other colleges.
An avowed democrat, he was an opposition leader during the 1970-73 government of Salvador Allende, the Western Hemisphere’s first freely elected Marxist president.
Despite opposing Allende, he took part in intense, last-minute negotiations for an agreement that sought to prevent the Marxist’s overthrow and death on Sept. 11, 1973, in Pinochet’s military coup.
Patricio. Aylwin later became a leading figure in opposing the dictatorship. When Pinochet was forced in a referendum to call an open election, a wide coalition of parties from the right to the left chose him as their candidate. He won the election.
Most Chileans felt that Patricio Aylwin was probably the right choice to rule the country immediately after Pinochet, when the military retained strong power
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