Hitler Would Have Been Safe in Britain, Pinochet Lawyers Say

Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has absolute immunity under British law, which would have given some protection even to Adolf Hitler, his lawyers told the country’s highest court Wednesday.

The immunity given to former heads of state might be regrettable, but the courts had to uphold it, and only parliament could change it, Clive Nicholls told the panel of five law lords that is considering whether Pinochet’s detention in Britain is legal.

Some crimes are matters for international tribunals, and had Hitler not committed suicide at the end of World War II, he certainly would have faced prosecution at the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg, Nicholls said.

But under British law, “Hitler would have been protected” in domestic British courts, Nicholls said during an exchange with the lords over whether the Holocaust was an official act for which Hitler could have claimed immunity under the provisions of the State Immunity Act.

“It may be a matter of grave regret from a moral point of view, but that is a matter for Parliament,” Nicholls said. “Parliament may well think the time has come when we shouldn’t have absolute immunity.”

Pinochet, 82, was arrested in London on Oct. 16 at the request of a Spanish judge who accuses him of responsibility for the deaths or disappearance of more than 3,000 people as well as torture and kidnapping during his rule in Chile from 1973 to 1990.

The High Court ruled in London last month that Pinochet enjoys immunity because the offenses of which he is accused were committed while he was head of state.