LONDON (AP) -- After waiting nearly seven weeks, former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet will learn Wednesday whether his lawyers have successfully fought efforts to extradite him to Spain to face charges of human rights abuses.

A seven-judge tribunal in the House of Lords, Britain's highest court, will deliver its ruling after deliberating since Feb. 4.If the judges decide in Pinochet's favor, his lawyers will immediately ask that bail restrictions be lifted so the 83-year-old general can return home to Chile.

But if the tribunal rules that Pinochet is not entitled to immunity from prosecution as a former head of state, it will kick off an extradition battle that could last years.

A regular visitor to Britain, Pinochet was arrested Oct. 16 on a Spanish warrant alleging that his security forces committed crimes against humanity during his 1973-1990 rule.

A Chilean government report says 3,197 people were murdered or disappeared after Pinochet ousted President Salvador Allende in a military coup, including Spaniards.

"The most important thing for us is that the Lords reaffirm the principle that certain crimes like torture are so far beyond the pale that no one, not even a former head of state, can claim immunity," said Reed Brody of the New York-based group Human Rights Watch.

In October, the High Court threw out Pinochet's arrest, saying he was entitled to immunity.

But Spanish prosecutors appealed to the House of Lords, arguing that universally condemned crimes such as torture fell outside any immunity protections. They also relied on the International Convention Against Torture, which Britain endorsed in 1988.

The convention, the lawyers argued, was crafted to ensure that any nation could prosecute any person for crimes of torture. Spain and Chile also signed the convention.

Pinochet's lawyers said the convention could not be applied to acts that occurred before it was adopted. Most of the charges against Pinochet in the Spanish warrant were alleged to have happened before 1988.

The Chilean government asked the judges to throw out Pinochet's arrest, calling it an affront to Chile's national sovereignty. They said Chile was the only proper place to bring Pinochet to trial.

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Pinochet is protected in Chile, however, by an amnesty law his government approved before leaving power.

In anticipation of the ruling, the Chilean government appealed to its citizens to remain calm and drafted a security plan to counter expected street protests.

Demonstrators in London set up 3,000 small wooden crosses outside the Houses of Parliament in memory of Pinochet's alleged victims.

An earlier House of Lords panel ruled against Pinochet's immunity claim, but the judgment was annulled because one judge had links to the human rights group Amnesty International.

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