Court Rules No Pinochet Immunity

By MAUREEN JOHNSON Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) -- Britain's highest court ruled today that Gen. Augusto Pinochet does not have immunity from arrest, meaning the former Chilean dictator must remain in custody while Spain seeks his extradition for killings and torture by his security forces.

The 3-2 decision by a tribunal of the House of Lords came on Pinochet's 83rd birthday. It reversed a court ruling that Pinochet's arrest Oct. 16 was illegal because he had immunity under English law for actions taken as a foreign former head of state.

The general and his wife, Lucia, heard the news-broadcast live on British television-in his room at the Grovelands Priory, the north London hospital where he had remained under police guard awaiting news of his fate.

Pinochet supporters were stunned by the judgment, which delighted international human rights organizations and many Chileans both at home and in exile.

The Spanish government and Spanish and British prosecutors had appealed the Oct. 28 High Court judgment.

A Chilean government report says about 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared during Pinochet's 1973-90 rule after he overthrew Salvador Allende, an elected Marxist.

Pinochet now must appear before Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London on Dec. 2, the deadline by which Home Secretary Jack Straw must decide whether extradition proceedings can go ahead.

Pinochet's best hope is that Straw will block the Spanish extradition proceedings, which would mean that extradition requests lodged by Switzerland, France and other countries also would likely fall away.

If Straw gives the go-ahead, Pinochet faces a long battle through the British courts against extradition.

Key issues in the appeal were whether international law and custom-including trials of Rwanda Hutus for genocide and war crimes, and Britain's 1988 adoption of a U.N. Convention on Torture-override this country's sweeping State Immunity Act passed in 1978.

Prosecutors' lawyers argued that Pinochet's alleged crimes were beyond immunity.

Pinochet underwent back surgery Oct. 9 during a regular visit to Britain and was arrested in his bed at another hospital.

AP-NY-11-25-98 0931EST