POLITICS-CHILE: Arbitration May Cut Short Pinochet Case

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Aug 2 1999 (IPS) - Spain’s government searches for support among its political opposition to accept a Chilean proposal for arbitration, which calls for reviewing the extradition of former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, from Britain to Spain.

Attorneys for victims of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) appealed to the Spanish government, led by Jose Maria Aznar, to not concede to the arbitration request, but support the court proceedings against the former dictator.

Since Pinochet was arrested in London last October at the request of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, the Chilean government has tried several different means to prevent the former dictator’s extradition to Spain and his subsequent trial there.

The most recent of these attempts was a letter sent July 23 to Spanish foreign affairs minister, Abel Matutes, by his Chilean counterpart, Juan Gabriel Valdes. The letter urges Matutes to accept bilateral arbitration to resolve the Pinochet case, outside national and international judicial proceedings.

Such arbitration would nullify Spain’s extradition demands, and could mean a rapid return to Chile for the former dictator and current senator-for-life.

Proceedings for Pinochet’s extradition to Spain are set to begin in London September 27.

The Madrid newspaper, El Pais, revealed Sunday that Matutes had requested support from Joaquin Almunia, secretary general of the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), in accepting Chile’s offer.

Matutes told Almunia that the Chilean request would be sent to the Council of State, the government’s highest consulting organism, to decide whether or not accepting the request would require Spanish parliament to approve a new law.

According to El Pais, the socialist leader responded to Matutes by refusing support, and saying that if the Council of State decides that a new law is necessary, PSOE parliamentarians would oppose it.

Joaquin Perez Villanueva, Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, declared Sunday on the state-run Radio 5 that the possibility of accepting the Chilean initiative “has not been excluded,” but that “a decision has not yet been made.”

Attorneys for the families of two Pinochet dictatorship victims, Spanish priests Joan Alsina (who was tortured and assassinated) and Antoni Llido (kidnapped, tortured and ‘disappeared’), sent Aznar a private letter Friday, to which IPS had access.

In the letter, the attorneys reminded the president that, in December 1997, the Congress of Deputies of Spain unanimously approved a motion requiring the recognition of legal proceedings against Pinochet, and that the European Parliament had approved three similar resolutions.

The attorneys said they were concerned that Matutes’s stance might “be interpreted as submission to a State (Chilean) which is not party” to the proceedings against Pinochet, but that “is continuously exerting pressure in the proceedings underway.”

The Chilean government’s attitude contrasts “with the British government’s energetic defence of the law and justice,” said the team of lawyers, led by Joan Garces and Manuel Murillo.

The attorneys emphatically criticised the fact that Spain’s Foreign Affairs Ministry handed over Public Prosecutor’s documents to the Chilean government. The documents are “pieces that are part of the proceedings” and should, according to law, be kept from third parties, they argued.

The victims’ attorneys also said that every time Matutes speaks or writes about the case, “he seems to be offering excuses as to why the courts are investigating (Pinochet),” and, they say, there is “a systematic absence of the word ‘crimes,’ as if the case were not based on material references.”

Matutes does not use the word ‘victims’ either, said the legal team, “as if they did not exist,” and ignores references to the “denial of justice” that are part of the crimes of which Pinochet is accused.

The lawyers asked Aznar for the government’s support the Judicial Power, and that it also provide them with a copy of “the reports turned over to the State (Chile) that defend the release, without trial, of a person facing proceedings for crimes against humanity.”

Carlos Slepoy, president of the Argentinean Pro Human Rights Commission, is also the attorney for the accusing parties in cases against the former Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships. He assured that “it would be absolutely illegal,” to submit the case to the arbitration Valdes has proposed.

Slepoy told IPS the Pinochet extradition proceedings are based on the International Convention Against Torture, according to the resolution taken by the British Chamber of Lords earlier this year. The Convention has been ratified by Chile, Spain and Britain.

If the case of a dispute among States to determine which has the highest legal instance to judge the former dictator, the Convention establishes that it should be decided by the United Nations Anti-Torture Committee.

But Chile has not asked Britain to hand over Pinochet in order to put him on trial before a Chilean tribunal.

For Chile to make jurisdictional demands it would first have to open criminal proceedings in which it accuses Pinochet and decides a provisional prison sentence.

Slepoy commented that this appears to be “unthinkable in the short-term, given the guarantees Pinochet declared before leaving his post as Commander in Chief of the Army.”

Chilean courts are currently studying some 30 cases against the former dictator, but none of the judges involved has requested Pinochet’s arrest. Nor has Pinochet been relieved of his parliamentary seat in order to face trial. This means no official criminal process has yet been initiated against him.

If Great Britain were to receive a request for arbitration from Chile, it would have to take into account the prior demand by Spain. And even if London courts deny Pinochet’s extradition to Spain, the Convention Against Torture establishes that Britain would have to try Pinochet there, explained Slepoy