LONDON -- A decision by Britain's highest legal authority to allow an extradition bid to continue against the former Chilean dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, has been hailed by British church representatives as a landmark judgment that means former heads of state can be prosecuted for crimes committed under their jurisdiction.
A panel of seven judges of the judicial committee of the House of Lords ruled Wednesday that 83-year-old Pinochet could not claim sovereign immunity for acts of torture carried out during part of his term as president of Chile.He has been under arrest in Britain since last October on a warrant from Spain seeking his extradition for alleged involvement in the murder and torture of political opponents, including Spanish citizens, after seizing power from Chile's elected president, Salvador Allende, a socialist, in a bloody coup in 1973. More than 3,000 people are believed to have died violently or to have disappeared in Chile during the Pinochet years.