Judge Gives Pinochet a Court Date if Extradition Fight Fails

A judge on Tuesday ordered Gen. Augusto Pinochet, now fit enough to leave a hospital, to appear before a London court Dec. 2--unless the former Chilean dictator wins a legal battle for immunity.

Pinochet has not been seen in public since his Oct. 16 arrest on a Spanish warrant seeking his extradition to face charges he was responsible for genocide, murder and torture during his 1973-90 rule. The warrant alleges that Pinochet’s victims included Spanish citizens in Chile.

A Chilean reporter who visited the 82-year-old general in the north London hospital where he is recuperating from back surgery said Tuesday that he looked well and walked with the help of a cane.

“He told me, ‘The only thing I lament is that this is lasting so long and they don’t tell when it is going to end,’ ” reporter Claudio Sanchez said on TV Channel 13, broadcast in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

During an extradition hearing Tuesday, Alun Jones--a lawyer for Spanish prosecutors seeking to overturn a High Court ruling that Pinochet has immunity from arrest--said that “information we have is that he is fit enough to be discharged from the hospital.”

Pinochet’s lawyers did not dispute that.

In a separate hearing later, Judge Andrew Collins altered Pinochet’s bail conditions, saying he could leave the Grovelands Priory hospital provided the Spanish government and the London police chief agreed.

There was no immediate word on whether Pinochet would be moved.

British Home Secretary Jack Straw also has to decide by Dec. 2 whether extradition proceedings can go ahead.

The court appearance and the extradition will fall away if the House of Lords, Britain’s highest court, upholds the ruling that Pinochet has immunity from arrest under British laws covering treatment of former foreign heads of state.

The five-judge tribunal has not said when it will announce its ruling.

Even if he lost in the Lords, Pinochet could leave Britain if Straw blocked the extradition proceedings.

In a similar case, Portugal’s attorney general is considering a lawmaker’s request to extradite former Indonesian President Suharto for rights abuses in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, an official said Tuesday.