Chile's Pinochet faces growing pros

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Subject: Chile's Pinochet faces growing prosecution threat


( Chile's Pinochet faces growing prosecution threat)-->

 LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet faced
a growing threat  
of prosecution on Tuesday for crimes committed during his country's "dirty
war" as the shock  
waves of his arrest unsettled Chile's ruling coalition. 

 Spain removed a key obstacle to Pinochet's extradition from Britain, where
he was arrested  
last Friday, saying it would back efforts to bring him to Madrid to face
charges  
of genocide, torture and terrorism if Spanish courts formally requested it. 

 A group of Chileans in exile in Britain announced its own plans to bring  
private criminal charges of torture and murder against Pinochet in a move
that could take  
legal precedence over Spanish attempts to extradite the former dictator. 

 In Chile-- which Pinochet ruled with an iron fist for 17 years until 1990,  
presiding over a witch-hunt of leftists in which at least 3,000 people died
or disappeared--  
there were fears the arrest could split the ruling Concertacion centre-left
coalition ahead of presidential  
elections in December 1999. 

 "Pinochet has always been a dividing factor in Chile. His arrest in London
complicates  
the political scene and the Concertacion could collapse," lawyer Guillermo
Caceres said in Santiago. "Or  the centre could link with the right instead
of the left." 

 Cuban President Fidel Castro, on a visit to the western Spanish city of
Merida,  
echoed the fears, saying Pinochet's arrest could make him a political
martyr and help return  
the right to power in Chile. 

 But Castro said he would be happy if the former dictator were put on trial. 

 The Cuban leader paid an extended three-week visit to Chile during the
rule of  
his close ally Salvador Allende, the Western Hemisphere's first freely
elected Marxist head of state,  
who was deposed by Pinochet in a bloody 1973 coup. 

 Chilean President Eduardo Frei has said Spain has no right to try
Pinochet. Frei's  
father, also a former president, led opposition to Pinochet's rule. 

 Chile's two right-wing parties have put aside recent bickerings and given
full support to  
the army and Frei, but leftist leaders have called on the government to
distance itself  
from the international row and let judicial matters run their course. 

 The 82-year-old general was arrested at the London clinic where he was
recovering from  
a back operation. The arrest came at the request of Spain's "Superjudge"
Baltasar Garzon, who  
has conducted a two-year investigation of atrocities committed during Latin
America's "dirty wars" of the  
1970s and 1980s. 

 British police made the surprise arrest after the Foreign Office ruled
that Pinochet's diplomatic  
passport did not confer immunity. Chile is demanding Britain uphold his
immunity. 

 Pinochet holds a seat for life in Chile's upper house of Congress, a right  
he wrote into the constitution. 

 Garzon is preparing a formal extradition request that must be approved by
Spain's cabinet  
before going through diplomatic channels to Britain. Court sources said
Garzon may have his documents  
ready for delivery within a few days. 

 In a statement released through his lawyers on Monday, Pinochet vowed to
resist attempts  
to extradite him. 

 A panel of Spanish High Court judges is expected to decide next week
whether  
Garzon has the right to press ahead with his efforts to bring Pinochet to
justice  
in Spain, court officials said. 

 Spanish Foreign Minister Abel Matutes said the government would show
"complete respect" for the  
outcome of court proceedings in the Pinochet affair, but he made no comment
on the  
merits of the case. 

 The European Parliament's majority Socialist group urged the Spanish
government to press ahead with  
the extradition. The call came in a draft resolution, with the backing of
four other  
parliamentary groups, submitted for a vote on Thursday. With such wide
backing, adoption was seen  
as a formality. 

 The private prosecution launched in London by Chileans in exile centred on
the cases  
of two Britons who disappeared in Chile-- William Beausire and a man
identified only as  
Woodward. 

 "At the end of the day, Pinochet is going to answer to the people  
who suffered torture, imprisonment and concentration camps-- and especially
to the mothers and families of  
the 'disappeared'," said group member Carlos Reyes.