LONDON (AP) -- Tussling over the fate of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet, his supporters said Tuesday he is very ill and that his arrest in a London clinic is endangering democracy in Chile.
But Amnesty International and two other human rights groups sought to have Pinochet prosecuted in Britain on torture charges. The effort is partly a fallback position if the general defeats attempts to extradite him to Spain to face allegations of murder, torture and genocide.
In a letter to Scotland Yard police commissioner Sir Paul Condon, the groups argued Pinochet could be brought before a British court under a new anti-torture law because Britons and Chileans now living here were among the thousands of political opponents who were killed, disappeared or forced into exile during his 17-year rule.
The family of William Beausire, a Briton who disappeared in Chile in 1975, endorsed the letter. Condon made no immediate response.
Pinochet, arrested by British police Friday in his bed in a private London clinic, has vowed to fight the extradition attempt.
An 11-member delegation from two right-wing parties in Chile said Tuesday that the 82-year-old general was too ill to be visited. He underwent surgery Oct. 9 for a herniated disc, a spinal disorder.
``He is really very, very sick,'' Alberto Espina, a member of the delegation from the Renovacion Nacional and Union Democratica Independiente parties, said after meeting Pinochet's wife, Lucia. ``I think he is going to stay a lot of days in bed and he is really in bad condition.''
Referring to Chile's successful transition to a democratic government, which included keeping Pinochet as army commander until March, Espina added, ``What you (Britain) are doing in the end is a danger for our democratic system.''
He said it would cause more tension between political factions divided over the merits of Pinochet's arrest.
Hours later in Chile's capital, Santiago, police used water cannons to break up a rally of at least five thousand Chileans shouting anti-Pinochet slogans and celebrating the ex-general's arrest.
During a visit to Spain, Fidel Castro agreed Tuesday that Pinochet's detention could create political problems in Chile, saying it would split the left and bolster the right by making Pinochet a ``right-wing martyr.''
But the Cuban leader said Pinochet's accomplices in the 1973 coup that brought him to power in Chile should also be arrested.
Castro's regime has been accused of many of the same human rights violations as Pinochet's former government.
In Madrid, one of the two Spanish magistrates probing human rights violations withdrew, hoping to strengthen the case for extradition by handing his evidence to his colleague.
Magistrate Baltasar Garzon will now seek Pinochet's extradition over the disappearance or death of up to 4,000 people in Chile, including an unspecified number of Spaniards. The case also involves the disappearance of 94 people, most Chileans, in Argentina.
However, the chief prosecutor of Spain's National Court, Eduardo Fungarino, challenged Garzon's extradition warrant, saying the alleged crimes were not Spain's business.
The court's plenary is expected to meet next week. If they decide the magistrates have no right to probe into events in Chile and Argentina, the extradition warrant will fall away, Fungarino said.
Earlier, Margaret Thatcher's office said the former Conservative Party prime minister had her old ally Pinochet over for drinks at her London home four days before he was hospitalized.
Chile says Britain's Labor Party government violated Pinochet's diplomatic immunity with the arrest.
On Wednesday evening, police used water cannons to break up a rally of at least five thousand Chileans supporting Pinochet's arrest who shouted anti-Pinochet slogans.
AP-NY-10-20-98 2024EDT
