Pinochet Appears in Court, Decries Proceedings

Defiant in a wheelchair, his famous iron grip wrapped around a cane, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet appeared in a court of law Friday for the first time to face charges in the killings, torture and kidnappings carried out during his brutal regime.

Pinochet the onetime strongman refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the British court that had demanded his presence for the formal opening of “The King of Spain vs. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte.”

“I do not recognize the jurisdiction of any court other than in my own country to try me on all the lies that the men from Spain have said,” he said in gravelly Spanish.

Yet Pinochet the defendant was confronted with another reality in the high-security courtroom: He is “the fugitive” in the Spanish extradition case, and his lawyers had to ask permission for Pinochet to take a walk in the garden of the mansion where he stays under house arrest.

British Magistrate Graham Parkinson readily complied.

“I certainly think it would be inhumane to stop the senator from walking in the garden whenever necessary,” Parkinson said.

The amiable magistrate had unwittingly hit on the essence of the Pinochet case: humanity.

A Spanish judge is seeking Pinochet’s extradition to try him for a wave of crimes against humanity committed during his 17-year rule, when more than 3,000 people were killed or disappeared and tens of thousands more were exiled. The charges include torture, attempted murder and hostage-taking.

Pinochet, who ousted elected Socialist President Salvador Allende in a 1973 coup, has long denied responsibility for any “excesses” that might have occurred during his regime. He has said he believes that he saved Chile from an even worse inhumanity: Cuban-style communism.

Pinochet issued a 13-page letter to his followers in Chile on Friday saying that he has been “the target of a judicial, political plot which lacks moral values.” The letter also offered rare condolences to the victims of his regime.

“I have never desired death for anybody, and I feel a sincere pain for all Chileans who lost their lives during those years,” he said in the letter read in Santiago, the Chilean capital.

Pinochet expressed no such emotion in the London courtroom. The hearing was a formality. Parkinson set the bail conditions and a date for a further hearing, Jan. 18, to determine when the two sides will begin arguing the case.

The technical nature of the hearing belied its drama. Outside the courthouse, many victims of Pinochet’s security forces and their families said they had waited 25 years for this moment, never really believing that it would come. Pinochet was not yet on trial, they said, but his reputation was. Their devil was being brought to his knees.

The retired general and his defenders had spent a quarter of a century trying to ensure that he would never face a court. Before stepping down from the presidency, Pinochet made sure that an amnesty would protect him and his own at home. They never dreamed that he would be nabbed in Britain.

“Everything that has happened to us has been an injustice,” Pinochet’s wife, Lucia Hiriart de Pinochet, told friends and supporters at her birthday celebration Thursday night. The Pinochets had come on a visit to a friendly country “where no one was going to betray him . . . because he hadn’t done anything.”

Instead, he was arrested Oct. 16 while recovering from spinal surgery. And now here he was, on his way to a courthouse usually reserved for British gangsters and Irish Republican Army prisoners. The gray courthouse attached to Belmarsh Prison in southern London was surrounded by a forest of microwave towers and television crews broadcasting live in half a dozen languages.

Inside, beyond the X-ray machines and police checks, the carpeted courtroom was quiet with expectation as Pinochet entered the room, pushed in a wheelchair by his son, Marco Antonio. Six police officers in bulletproof vests stood guard.

The former dictator fixed his gaze straight ahead, unyielding.

Asked to identify himself to the court, he answered in Spanish, “My name is Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. I was commander-in-chief of the army in Chile, captain-general of Chile, president of the republic, and actually I am senator of the republic.”

A translator whispered to him in Spanish throughout the proceedings. His onetime foreign minister, Miguel Schweitzer, stood by his side and offered comments. In the end, lawyer Clive Nichols asked the magistrate for permission for Pinochet to speak.

Pinochet denounced the proceedings and “Spanish lies,” and waved his gnarled hand dismissively. “That’s all I want to say.”

The magistrate responded politely.

“I hear what he says. My duty is to conduct the proceedings in accordance with the Extradition Act passed in England in 1989, and I must do so. I’m sure he understands,” Parkinson said.

To Pinochet’s protesters, his statement in the courtroom was yet another example of his lack of repentance.

“It was a tremendous emotional experience for me to see Gen. Pinochet, who was so arrogant, and is still so arrogant, sitting in court,” said Vicente Alegria, a leader of the Chilean exiles in London.

But to Pinochet’s defenders, their hero had turned a humiliation into a source of pride.

“This may be the last chapter of Pinochet, but he was the same courageous man as ever,” said Chilean Sen. Ignacio Perez Walker, who accompanied Pinochet to court. “He is prepared for everything. He is a soldier and a statesman.”