Pinochet Appeals Britain’s Immunity Ruling

Lawyers for Augusto Pinochet appealed to Britain’s highest court Thursday to reconsider a landmark ruling by five of its judges that the former Chilean dictator is not immune from prosecution for grave human rights abuses during his regime.

The petition to the House of Lords is the latest maneuver in what promises to be months, and possibly years, of legal wrangling to prevent the 83-year-old Pinochet’s extradition to Spain on charges of genocide, torture and other crimes committed during his 17-year rule.

Prosecutors did not expect the challenge to prevent Pinochet from making his first appearance at a high-security court for a procedural hearing scheduled for today.

But it could delay the extradition case, buying Pinochet more time at the rented mansion where he is staying on a posh estate about 20 miles west of London.

“We have lodged a petition with the House of Lords that the decision of their lordships that Sen. Pinochet does not have sovereign immunity should not be allowed to stand,” said Michael Caplan of the law firm Kingsley Napley. Pinochet is a senator-for-life in Chile.

Caplan did not give the reasons for the challenge, but Pinochet’s lawyers have previously alleged that the judge who cast the deciding vote in the 3-2 decision, Leonard Hoffmann, was biased because of links with the human rights group Amnesty International. Hoffmann’s wife works as a secretary there, and he is a director of a fund-raising arm.

Amnesty International has long campaigned for Pinochet to face a court of law in connection with the deaths or disappearances of more than 3,000 people under his brutal regime, which ended in 1990. The group represented some of the victims of Pinochet’s repressive security forces in arguments before the House of Lords panel.

The petition to “set aside” the Nov. 25 ruling is to be discussed next week by a committee of Law Lords, which will decide whether to have a full appeal hearing.

Amnesty International has dismissed claims that Hoffmann was biased against Pinochet and called the petition an “act of desperation.” The group noted that Thomas Bingham, a lower court judge who had ruled in favor of Pinochet’s immunity claim, signed a letter last year to raise funds for a new Amnesty International building.

And they said that Kingsley Napley, the law firm, donated more than $1,650 to that drive.

Pinochet was arrested Oct. 16 on a warrant from Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon. In Madrid on Thursday, Garzon filed a 300-page formal indictment against Pinochet on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture allegedly committed in Chile while the former dictator was in power. Garzon also asked for a worldwide freeze on Pinochet’s assets and for his continued detention in Britain.

British Home Secretary Jack Straw ruled Wednesday that extradition proceedings could go forward on charges including attempted murder, torture and hostage-taking, but he ruled out extradition on a charge of genocide.

Straw also rejected the allegations of bias against Hoffmann, and Pinochet’s lawyers said they were considering a separate legal challenge of Straw’s decision to proceed.

Legal experts said Pinochet’s challenge of the Law Lords’ immunity ruling was unprecedented--no one had ever petitioned the nation’s highest court to overturn its own decision. They expect the petition to fail, saying that the Law Lords are likely to concur with Straw.

“Any port in a storm. Pinochet’s lawyers are in bad trouble. This is a delay tactic,” said Carol Harlow, a professor of public law at the London School of Economics.

In the United States, a judge with loose links to Amnesty such as Hoffmann most likely would have taken himself off the case to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest.

But Harlow said the Amnesty charity on which Hoffmann serves is classified as a nonprofit, nonpolitical organization in Britain, and his patronage “doesn’t look bad in London. . . . It probably simply did not occur to Lord Hoffmann that in Chile and the press of the world, this would be read as meaning he took an active part in Amnesty.”

Britain’s 12 Law Lords are appointed by the lord chancellor, the country’s highest justice official. Until now, their legal decisions have not been seen as overtly political in the way that many Americans view U.S. Supreme Court decisions.