UK: LONDON: AUGUSTO PINOCHET HEARINGS SITUATION UPDATE скачать в хорошем качестве

UK: LONDON: AUGUSTO PINOCHET HEARINGS SITUATION UPDATE

(12 Nov 1998) English/Nat Prosecutors in London say a court ruling allowing General Augusto Pinochet immunity from prosecution in Britain should be overturned because the crimes he is charged with "unequivocally" violate international law. However a lawyer for the former Chilean dictator reiterated to a five-judge tribunal in the House of Lords, Britain's highest court, that any acts committed by Pinochet were "in exercise of governmental power" and thereby immune from prosecution. At the conclusion of the six-day hearing, Lord Justice Gordon Slynn gave no indication when the tribunal would rule in what he called "this important and very difficult case." In another blow to the continuing battle to free Pinochet French Authorities on Thursday asked the U-K to start extradition proceedings against him for the torture of French citizens while he was in power. A group of anti-Pinochet protesters has kept up its vigil outside the mother of parliaments in the hope that justice, as they see it, will be done by the House of Lords. Pinochet was arrested on October 16th in London on a Spanish extradition warrant citing charges of genocide, torture and kidnapping during his 17-year rule, which began in 1973 when he toppled Salvador Allende, an elected Marxist. But England's High Court rejected the arrest, saying Britain's 1978 State Immunity Act granted him immunity from arrest here as a former foreign head of state. Outside the House of Lords the protesters demanded that justice be done. SOUNDBITE: (English) Well, the judges have asked questions rather than given opinions. If there is any justice here then immunity must be lifted and the extradition proceedings to Spain must go ahead so that Pinochet would then have to go to Spain to answer for the death of Spanish nationals and then of course there's a whole queue of others. SUPER CAPTION: Jeremy Corbyn, MP (Labour) A Chilean exile leader said that if Pinochet went free it would give the wrong example to all the dictators in the world. SOUNDBITE: (English) Well we hope of course that's it going to go in our favour because otherwise it would be a travesty of justice, it will be immunity for dictators, I mean not just General Pinochet can come here but any dictator, even Hitler if he was still alive, he could come back here and justify genocide and justify the holocaust and nothing will happen. In Germany and France it is illegal to justify the holocaust, like the defence of Pinochet is doing here. SUPER CAPTION: Vicente Alegria A report by Chile's government says about 3-thousand people were killed or disappeared at the hands of secret police under Pinochet. Chile, however, has condemned his arrest, saying it strains the country's democracy, carefully built since the general stepped down in 1990. Right wing Chilean MPs held a press conference at the Chilean embassy, stating that there was wrong done on both sides by the left and the right and that Pinochet should not be made a scapegoat. SOUNDBITE: (English) "It's not only a matter of Pinochet saying I'm sorry, it's a fact of everybody recognising how this violence came to Chile. So we want this to be stated in England because for twenty five years our history has been distorted. The truth, the whole truth has not been told. Our history does not start in 1973." SUPER CAPTION: Maria Angelica, Renovacion Nacional As the Law Lords deliberate, both pro and anti Pinochet factions realise that success is paramount. Defeat for either side would be a bitter blow. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...