How Britain allowed Pinochet to escape justice for atrocities

On 2 March 2000, Augusto Pinochet walked falteringly across the tarmac at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire and boarded a Chilean air force jet, marking his final steps on British soil.

The former dictator had just been declared unfit to stand trial by Britain’s home secretary, Jack Straw, and was allowed to return to Chile with immediate effect.

Pinochet had spent the previous 16 months on house arrest in Britain, awaiting the outcome of a Spanish extradition request for human rights violations committed under his regime.

Between 1973 and 1988, Chilean state agents were responsible for over 3,000 deaths or disappearances and tens of thousands of cases of torture and political arrests. The Spanish extradition request for Pinochet included charges of murder and torture.

The UK government’s decision to allow Pinochet to escape justice was consequently met with outrage, particularly after the despot seemed to show miraculous signs of recovery upon his arrival in Santiago.

Many suspected that a political agreement had been reached to allow Pinochet to return to Chile under cover of a contentious medical report which claimed he was unable to instruct his lawyers.

Recently declassified files now indicate how the legal process had been complicated by a secret deal made with Pinochet by Margaret Thatcher during the 1980s. 

Thatcher, the files suggest, had promised the dictator medical assistance in Britain in return for Chile’s military and intelligence support during the Falklands War in 1982.

The documents further show how the idea to release Pinochet on health grounds had been discussed at length behind closed doors, with the Chilean authorities pushing a “humanitarian” solution to the crisis.

Jeremy Corbyn MP, a prominent supporter of the campaign to see Pinochet extradited, commented: “All the time there was pressure to allow Pinochet to go back… This concoction about his health was developed and we were told that he was a man who was losing his memory, age was taking over, and he would not be fit to face trial”.

‘It would be embarrassing if this came out’

The warrant for Pinochet’s arrest was executed just before midnight on 16 October 1998 at the London Clinic, a private hospital in England’s capital.

It was issued so late into the night because “intelligence stated Pinochet was planning to leave the hospital and the country imminently”, a declassified Metropolitan Police briefing notes.

British plain clothes officers stationed at the hospital were also “discreetly armed” to prevent Pinochet’s “assisted escape from police custody” into the nearby Chilean embassy.

As the police officers executed their legal duties, news of Pinochet’s detention began to reach Whitehall, sparking frenzied internal discussions forecasting a potential political firestorm.

One of the most remarkable dispatches was sent to then UK prime minister Tony Blair from his principal private secretary, John Holmes, on the day of Pinochet’s arrest.

“You should be aware that the Spanish authorities have asked for the extradition of General Pinochet, who is currently in London undergoing medical treatment”, Blair was informed.

“The position is rather more complicated than it might seem”, Holmes continued. “Apparently we have an understanding with him from the past, because of our cooperation with the Chileans against Argentina at the time of the Falklands crisis, that we would help him with medical treatment in London”.

Holmes observed ominously: “It would obviously be embarrassing if all this came out”.

Fearing Argentine expansionism, the Pinochet regime had provided Britain with military and intelligence support during the Falklands war in return for lucrative arms deals which included the sale of Hawker Hunter jets and Canberra photographic reconnaissance aircraft.

Several files on the Chilean regime’s support to Britain during the war remain classified by the UK Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office.

Despite these complications, Holmes remained cautiously optimistic about the Pinochet case. “This might all come to nothing, with luck”, he told Blair.

Holmes added: “The Home Office share my view that it is best if the extradition request goes nowhere”, seemingly betraying Jack Straw’s initial position on the matter.

‘Extreme national danger’

It wasn’t just the Chilean authorities lobbying for Pinochet’s release.

Margaret Thatcher wrote to Blair on 25 November 1998 to declare how “the right decision now is to act swiftly to release him to return home”.

Pinochet was “an old, sick man who on compassionate grounds alone should be spared what the future would otherwise hold”, she declared.

Referring to the Falklands war, Thatcher added that it could “only do this country’s reputation harm if it is known that those, like Senator Pinochet, who were our close friends in times of extreme national danger can subsequently expect to be treated in this way”.

Even the Vatican weighed in.

Within weeks of Pinochet being arrested, the Holy See’s foreign secretary-equivalent wrote to Blair to emphasise his conviction “that all the requisites exist for a humanitarian gesture in favour of an 83-year-old man who is sick and who had gone to London for a serious operation”.

By mid-1999, the combined pressure on the UK government to release Pinochet appeared to be bearing fruit when a deal was concocted between Chile, France, Spain, and the UK for Straw to scotch the extradition request and “return Pinochet home on ‘humanitarian grounds’”.

UK foreign secretary Robin Cook reportedly told his Spanish counterpart Abel Matutes that he would “not let him [Pinochet] die in Britain”, to which Matutes responded: “I will not let him come to Spain”.

After Pinochet returned to Chile, he became the subject of scores of legal cases relating to human rights abuses and corruption. He was never sentenced, however, and died in 2006.

John McEvoy is acting Chief Investigator for Declassified UK. John is an historian and filmmaker whose work focuses on British foreign policy and Latin America. His PhD was on Britain’s Secret Wars in Colombia between 1948 and 2009, and he is currently working on a documentary about Britain’s role in the rise of Augusto Pinochet.

Photo - World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo