-Caveat Lector- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Secret UK deal freed Pinochet (Observer, 7 January) Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 23:54:44 -0600 (CST) From: Sanjoy Mahajan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: ? To: undisclosed-recipients:; http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4113538,00.html Secret UK deal freed Pinochet A new book alleges the former dictator's release from Britain was brokered between Chile and Downing St. Hugh O'Shaughnessy Sunday January 7, 2001 The Observer (London) Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator, was allowed to escape extradition to Spain on 2 March last year because of plans worked out over many months by Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in collaboration with Eduardo Frei, then President of Chile, according to leading Chilean sources. José María Aznar, the conservative Prime Minister of Spain and his Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, were involved in the planning. 'The freeing of Pinochet was a political decision taken by the British Government,' Hernán Montealegre, Chile's leading human rights lawyer, told The Observer yesterday. If the medical report which Home Secretary Jack Straw used to justify the former dictator's release had been tested in the courts, it would not have stood up, he claimed. Pinochet faces summary arrest today for contempt of court, having refused to submit to the medical examination ordered by Juan Guzmán, the examining judge dealing with the 1973 Caravan of Death case in which the former dictator is implicated. Pinochet faces an additional 202 charges which relate to other crimes. The Blair-Frei plan was to prevent Pinochet's extradition while observing the law. Instead, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary relied on Britain's wide discretion on extradition matters. The plan was conceived in 1999 after it became clear that the Pinochet affair was dragging on far longer than governments expected and came to fruition when British doctors examined the General at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, north London, on 5 January last year. Their report allowed Straw to exercise his discretion to release Pinochet on humanitarian grounds even though the former dictator had never said he was too ill to stand trial. The medical report was leaked in February after the High Court in London forced an unwilling Straw to disclose it to the Spanish and other governments. It was widely criticised as skimpy and unconvincing by experts in geriatrics in Britain and on the continent, particularly by the Belgian government which, with Switzerland and France, was also seeking Pinochet's extradition on grave charges. The plan evolved in discussions round the world - in London, Madrid, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, at United Nations headquarters in New York and in Auckland, the capital of New Zealand. The Observer has reconstructed the moves which allowed a dictator notorious for murder and torture to escape trial in Spain last year. On 2 November 1998, shortly after Pinochet's arrest when it was expected that he would be speedily sent to Spain, Blair and Aznar met in Downing Street and it was announced that Spain would collaborate fully with the extradition proceedings. 'We will apply judicial decisions,' said Francisco Alvarez Cascos, Aznar's deputy. The legal wrangles continued into 1999. By mid-1999 a new stratagem emerged when Frei, had a long telephone conversation with Blair in which the Chilean sought help in getting Pinochet released back to Chile on humanitarian grounds. According to a book just published in Santiago, Augusto Pinochet: 503 Dias Atrapado en Londres (Augusto Pinochet: 503 Days Trapped in London) by Monica Pérez, a leading Chilean TV journalist and Felipe Gertdtzen, the son-in-law of Frei, the Chilean President was keen to achieve Pinochet's return to Chile before his term ended in 2000. Frei argued to Blair that neither government would benefit if Pinochet were to die in England and that he could be tried in Chilean courts. According to the book, Blair emphasised to Frei that the case was before the courts and the Government could not interfere, adding that any British leader would court grave problems at home if he were seen to interfere with the course of justice. If there were any powers which Government could exercise they would be exercised by a Home Secretary not a Prime Minister, he said. Blair undertook to do what he could within the law provided the exchanges between the two leaders were kept secret. The authors claim that Blair suggested setting up a 'back channel', with two people appointed to liaise between the leaders' private offices. Frei's phone call followed a discussion on the Pinochet case in Rio at the Europe-Latin America summit between Chilean Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdes and Cook. The two had got on well. Valdes and Cook continued their discussions at a meeting in September 1999 in the New Zealand capital, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office confirmed yesterday. They met again later that month at the UN in New York. Valdes had also met Spanish Foreign Minister Matutes at the Rio summit, where the pair laid the foundations for the Spanish government's later sabotage of the efforts of Judge Baltasar Garzón to have Pinochet extradited to Spain. Aznar's government, worried about threats against Spanish investment in Chile, refused to transmit Garzón's instructions to the Crown Prosecution Service last January, an action for which Matutes was taken to court in Madrid in February last year. Aznar has a close relationship with Blair and the two men and their wives Cherie and Ana have twice been on holiday together in Spain since April 1998. The contact man between Frei and Blair was Cristian Tolosa, Frei's press chief, who made six visits to London in the second half of 1999, liaising with Blair's aide Jonathan Powell at Number 10. Yesterday, Downing Street said that it did not comment on contacts between officials. Originally, Pinochet, proud of his physical fitness, refused to submit to the medical tests Frei wanted him to undergo. It took the dispatch of two Chilean generals, Juan Emilio Cheyre and Carlos Molina, to convince him to accept being medically examined, even by Chileans. The results of the Chilean examination were presented to the British, together with a memorandum on British extradition law prepared by the Chileans. Straw then went ahead with the second, much- criticised medical examination of Pinochet by British doctors which enabled the Home Secretary to refuse extradition on humanitarian grounds. Until Pinochet's departure from Britain, the Government rejected insistent calls from Amnesty International and others that it should itself charge Pinochet under the UN Convention against Torture - rather than merely respond to an initiative by a Spanish court. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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