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
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.