Pinochet Back Before Brit Court
The fate of Augusto Pinochet is in the hands of Britain's highest court, which is hearing an appeal on an earlier decision that the former Chilean dictator has immunity from prosecution.
Lawyers on Thursday argued that international conventions outlawing genocide and other crimes against humanity mean that Pinochet should face trial for human rights abuses committed during his 17-year rule.
"Torture and other serious crimes against humanity have been well-established as crimes in international law throughout the '70s and '80s, and indeed earlier than that," said Christopher Greenwood, a lawyer for a Spanish magistrate, British prosecutors and the Spanish government.
On the second day of an appeal of a High Court finding that Pinochet's Oct. 16 arrest on a Spanish warrant was illegal, the lawyers argued that Pinochet should not be granted immunity because of his status as a former head of state.
England's 1978 State Immunity Act, under which the High Court quashed Pinochet's arrest last week, should be superseded by international conventions that Britain has signed, they said.
On Wednesday, the five-judge panel hearing the case in Britain's highest court, Parliament's House of Lords, overruled objections from Pinochet's lawyers and agreed to hear new arguments that prosecutors did not raise at the High Court hearing.
The prosecutors will attempt to cast doubt on whether Pinochet was actually head of state throughout his rule, particularly in the first violent hours after he seized power on Sept. 11, 1973, and whether international law now calls for anyone accused of genocide, torture, and kidnapping to face a court.
The current Chilean government says 3,000 political opponents were killed or disappeared during the years Pincohet held power after ousting President Salvador Allende, an elected Marxist.
"Our argument can be put in one sentence," lawyer Alun Jones argued against the High Court ruling. "It is no part of the functions of a head of state recognized by English or international law to behave like that."
Jones also said that even if Pinochet has immunity for tortures and killings carried out in Chile by his secret police, he remained legally responsible for killings of opponents in other countries, including Spain, Italy, and the United States.
The hearing, originally scheduled to end Thursday, was expected to last until Monday. The Lords, who do not sit on Fridays, may not decide the case immediately.
Pinochet, who underwent back surgery Oct. 9, remains under police guard in a north London hospital.
In addition to Spain, six other European countries have extradition proceedings under way, but those likely would become irrelevant if the Lords free Pinochet.
If they uphold his arrest after the hearing, which is expected to continue into next week, a legal battle looms in British courts over extradition.
The Chilean government aid Wednesday that upon returning home, Pinochet should quit politics and ask for forgiveness. Pinochet has had immunity from prosecution there as a senator-for-life and under laws he initiated.
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