Judge Rejects Efforts to Block Pinochet Release

A British court Monday rejected last-ditch attempts by six human rights groups and the Belgian government to block the release of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, removing one of the last legal obstacles to his return to Chile.

A London High Court judge denied both petitions for a judicial review of the British government’s proposal to free the 84-year-old Pinochet on humanitarian grounds.

Home Secretary Jack Straw announced Jan. 11 that a panel of four distinguished British doctors had determined that Pinochet was too feeble to stand trial and that he himself was, therefore, “minded” to send the retired general home rather than allow his extradition to Spain to face torture charges.

Pinochet’s opponents went to court to challenge Straw’s refusal to release the medical report on grounds of confidentiality, and to ask for another independent medical review.

But Judge Maurice Kay said Straw had acted “lawfully, fairly and rationally” in withholding the results, and rejected their petitions.

“In my judgment neither Amnesty International and the other human rights groups nor Belgium have arguable grounds for judicial review, and accordingly I shall refuse both applications,” Kay said in his 37-page ruling.

“I do so after careful consideration, conscious that my decision is unavoidably adverse to, on the one hand, people who have suffered greatly in Chile’s recent history, and, in the case of Belgium, to a friendly state and its judicial authorities,” Kay said.

Belgium was one of four countries that had sought Pinochet’s extradition for alleged human rights abuses during his 1973-90 reign, when at least 3,000 political opponents were killed or disappeared.

The Belgian government appealed Monday’s decision to a higher court, saying it expected a new hearing beginning next Monday. It said it would be its last challenge.

Human rights activists held out little hope of blocking Pinochet’s release after 16 months that he has spent under house arrest while lawyers have battled over his fate.

“Given the results today, the chances we could stop an order afterwards are pretty slim,” said Reed Brody of New York-based Human Rights Watch, one of the groups that lost the challenge Monday.

A British government spokesman said Straw was unlikely to make a final decision on Pinochet’s release before appeals had been exhausted.

A Chilean jet has been parked at a British air base northwest of London since Saturday waiting to take Pinochet back to the Chilean capital, Santiago, in the event he is freed.

Pinochet was arrested in London in October 1998 at the request of Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon. The conservative government of Spain reluctantly pursued the case until Straw announced that he was inclined to let Pinochet go--a political, rather than legal, decision on the part of the British government.

Human rights activists say Pinochet’s case has set valuable precedents in international human rights law, establishing that a former head of state cannot claim immunity for crimes against humanity and that foreign governments have a right to bring suit in such cases.

But the activists expressed frustration at what is perceived to be the likely end to the Pinochet case: freedom for the former dictator.

Amnesty International questioned the “fairness and transparency” of the British procedure, and Chile Democratico, which represents Chilean exiles in Britain, said, “It would be a major setback for the cause of human rights” if Pinochet went home without facing judge and jury.