SANTIAGO, Chile - Chile's Supreme Court gave judges on Tuesday a six-month deadline to wrap up investigations into hundreds of charges of human rights abuses under former dictator Augusto Pinochet, a move long sought by the military officers standing trial.

The high court said in a written resolution that judges investigating over 300 charges of murder, torture and kidnappings under Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule should file formal charges or indictments within six months or the cases would be closed.

The 356 human rights cases stemming from the Pinochet period have been winding their way through Chile's lower courts for years. Judges have reached verdicts in only eight cases.

The high court's decision came a week after a retired army intelligence officer killed himself because he was on trial for the murder of leftists while Pinochet was in power.

Before leaping off the 18th floor of a building, German Barriga wrote a suicide note saying he was tormented by the prospect of ending up in jail and could not keep a job because people knew of his past in Pinochet's secret police.

The suicide renewed bitter divisions in Chile between human rights groups, who demand courts continue to probe the human rights abuses committed under Pinochet 20 or 30 years ago, and those who say Chile should turn the page on its painful past and end the drawn-out trials of Pinochet and his former military officers.

Military commander-in-chief Emilio Cheyre has argued for speeding up the trials. Barriga's suicide last week prompted Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, an outspoken opponent of Pinochet in the 1980s, to call on judges to issue their rulings.

Supreme Court President Marcos Libedinsky said the resolution was not related to Barriga's death.

Human rights groups and relatives of rights victims declined immediate comment. In the past, they vehemently rejected any such move as an underhanded attempt at halting trials and leaving offenders unpunished, having the same effect as "punto final" laws adopted by other Latin American countries.

Libedinsky ruled that out.

"This aims for speed, putting an end to the trials, but it is not, under any circumstances, intended as a ‘punto final,’” he said.

An estimated 3,000 people were killed or disappeared during Pinochet's rule and 27,000 were tortured, according to government reports.