Arrest in London In 1998, Pinochet, who at the time continued to wield considerable influence in Chile, travelled to the United Kingdom for medical treatment; allegations have been made that he was also there to negotiate arms contracts. While in London, he was arrested on 16 October 1998 under an international arrest warrant issued by judge
Baltasar Garzón of Spain, before he was placed under
house arrest: initially in
the London Clinic where he had just undergone back surgery, later in a rented house. The charges included 194 counts of killings of Spanish citizens, the 1975 assassination of Spanish diplomat
Carmelo Soria, in addition to one count of conspiracy to commit torture – allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, including since the beginning of his rule, but had never been acted upon. Grappling with the conditions set by Chile's turbulent
transition to democracy, the coalition government known as
Concertación and headed by President
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle opposed his arrest,
extradition to Spain, as well as trial. A hard-fought 16-month-long legal battle ensued in the
House of Lords, then the highest court of the United Kingdom. Pinochet claimed immunity from prosecution as a former head of state under the
State Immunity Act 1978. This was rejected by a majority of the
Law Lords (3–2), who ruled that some international crimes, such as torture, did not grant a former head-of-state
immunity. However, the judgement was set aside in
a subsequent, unprecedented case on the basis that one of the judges involved was potentially biased due to his ties to
Amnesty International, a human rights organization that had campaigned against Pinochet for decades and acted as an intervenor in the case.
A third ruling in March 1999 confirmed the original verdict; this time, the Lords held that Pinochet could only be prosecuted for crimes committed after 1988, the year in which the United Kingdom implemented
legislation ratifying the
United Nations Convention Against Torture in the
Criminal Justice Act 1988. This invalidated most, but not all, of the charges against Pinochet and gave the green light for his extradition to Spain to proceed. In April 1999, former UK Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher and former US President
George H. W. Bush called upon the British government to release Pinochet. They argued that Pinochet should be allowed to return to his homeland rather than be extradited to Spain. On the other hand,
United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights,
Mary Robinson, hailed the Lords' ruling, declaring that it was a clear endorsement that torture is an international crime subject to universal jurisdiction. In protest against Spain's action, Chile withdrew its ambassador from
Madrid for a time. Thatcher sent Pinochet a bottle of
single malt whisky during this time, with a note saying "Scotch is one British institution that will never let you down". Meanwhile, questions began to emerge in the media about Pinochet's allegedly fragile health. After medical tests were conducted, Home Secretary
Jack Straw ruled in January 2000 that the former dictator should not be extradited to Spain. This triggered protests from human rights NGOs; it led the Belgian government, along with six human rights groups (including
Amnesty International), to file a complaint against Straw's decision before the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in January 2000. Belgium, as well as France and Switzerland, had deposed extradition requests in the wake of Spain's demand. On 3 March 2000, Pinochet returned to Chile. His first act upon landing in
Santiago de Chile's airport was to triumphantly stand up from his wheelchair to the acclaim of his supporters. President
Ricardo Lagos, who had just been sworn into office on 11 March, said the retired general's televised arrival had damaged Chile's international reputation, while thousands held demonstrations against the ex-dictator. Despite his release on grounds of ill health, the unprecedented detention of Pinochet in a foreign country for
crimes against humanity committed in his own country, without a warrant or request for extradition from his own country, marked a watershed in
international law. Some scholars consider it one of the most important events in legal history since the
Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. Judge Garzón's case was largely founded on the principle of
universal jurisdiction – that certain crimes are so egregious that they constitute crimes against humanity and can therefore be prosecuted in any court in the world. The British House of Lords ruled that Pinochet had no right to immunity from prosecution as a former head of state, and could be put on trial. In Spain, the
Court of Appeal of the
Audiencia Nacional affirmed Spanish jurisdiction over
Argentine and Chilean cases, declaring that domestic amnesty laws (in the case of Chile, the 1978 amnesty law passed by Pinochet's regime) could not bind the Spanish courts.
Return to Chile In March 2000, after Pinochet's return, the Chilean Congress approved a
constitutional amendment creating the status of "ex-president", which granted Pinochet immunity from prosecution and guaranteed him a financial allowance. In exchange, it required him to resign his seat of
senator-for-life. 111 legislators voted for; 29 against. Despite this political move, on 23 May 2000, the
Court of Appeal of
Santiago lifted Pinochet's parliamentary immunity concerning the
Caravan of Death case. This was confirmed by the
Supreme Court of Chile, which voted on 8 August 2000, by 14 votes against 6, to strip Pinochet of his parliamentary immunity. On 1 December 2000, judge
Juan Guzmán Tapia indicted Pinochet for the kidnapping of 75 opponents in the Caravan of Death case – Guzmán advanced the charge of kidnapping on the grounds that the victims were officially "
disappeared": even though they were most likely dead, the absence of their corpses made any charge of homicide difficult. Shortly after, on 11 December 2000, the ruling was suspended by the Court of Appeal of Santiago on medical grounds. In addition to the Caravan of Death, 177 other complaints were filed against Pinochet. Subsequently, judge Guzmán ordered his arrest in late January 2001. However, the judiciary procedures were again suspended on 9 July 2001 because of alleged health reasons. In July 2002, the Supreme Court dismissed Pinochet's indictment in the various cases on medical grounds (an alleged "vascular
dementia"). That same year, the
prosecuting attorney Hugo Guttierez, who headed the Caravan of Death case, declared that "Our country has the degree of justice that the
political transition permits us to have." Shortly after the verdict, Pinochet resigned from the Senate, thus benefiting from the 2000 constitutional amendment granting him immunity from prosecution. Thereafter, he lived a quiet life, rarely made public appearances and was notably absent from events marking the 30th anniversary of the coup on 11 September 2003.
House arrest On 28 May 2004, a Court of Appeals voted 14 to 9 to revoke Pinochet's dementia status and, consequently, his immunity from prosecution. In arguing its case, the prosecution presented a recent television interview Pinochet had given for a
Miami-based television network. The judges found that the interview raised doubts about the alleged mental incapacity of Pinochet. On 26 August, in a 9 to 8 vote, the Supreme Court upheld the decision. On 2 December, a Santiago Appeals Court stripped Pinochet of immunity from prosecution over the 1974 assassination of General
Carlos Prats, his predecessor as Army Commander-in-Chief, who was killed by a car bomb while in exile in Argentina. On 13 December, Judge
Juan Guzmán Tapia placed Pinochet under house arrest and indicted him over the disappearance of nine opposition activists and the murder of one of them during his regime. However, the Supreme Court reversed the Appeals Court ruling in the Carlos Prats case on 24 March 2005, thereby upholding Pinochet's immunity. Later that year, on 14 September, the Supreme Court decided to strip Pinochet of his immunity in the
Operation Colombo case involving the killing of 119 dissidents. The following day, he was then acquitted of the human rights case due to his purported ill health. In late November, he was once again deemed fit to stand trial by the Chilean Supreme Court and indicted, this time for the disappearance of six dissidents who had been detained by Chile's security forces in late 1974. He was placed under house arrest on the eve of his 90th birthday. In July 2006, the Supreme Court upheld a January judgment by the Court of Appeal of Santiago, which argued that the 2002 Supreme Court's ruling stating that Pinochet could not be prosecuted in the Caravan of Death case did not apply to two of its victims, who were former bodyguards of Salvador Allende. On 9 September, Pinochet was stripped of his immunity by the
Supreme Court. Judge Alejandro Madrid was thus able to indict him for the kidnappings and
tortures at
Villa Grimaldi. On 30 October, Pinochet was charged with 36 counts of kidnapping, 23 counts of torture, and one of murder for the torture and disappearance of opponents of his regime at Villa Grimaldi. On 28 November 2006, judge Víctor Montiglio, charged with overseeing the Caravan of Death case, ordered Pinochet's
house arrest. However, Pinochet died a few days later on 10 December, without having been convicted of any crimes committed during his administration. ==Tax fraud and foreign bank accounts==