"I feel we won the match by one goal when we could have won it by two," said one human rights worker as Augusto Pinochet took off on Thursday from an RAF station in Lincolnshire in his Chilean air force jet for Santiago and freedom. The single goal that that worker referred to was in itself a magnificent score. By allowing him to be arrested in London in October 1998 and be forced to await the decision on a long series of legal actions, the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, started a process which has set an enormously important legal precedent.
Following two rulings in the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, no more will former heads of state who have committed atrocities during their time in office be able to wander the world freely, safe in the knowledge that they can enjoy impunity for their crimes.
The UN Convention on Torture which more than 100 states - including Chile and Spain as well as Britain - have ratified over the past 15 years always held that signatory governments were under a strict duty to seize such people and judge them wherever they were to be found.
But governments had always ignored its provisions. It looked good in public for Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher to be seen signing the convention as they did. It was quite another matter for them and their like to actually put it into practice.
To have detained those accused of crimes against humanity would have been tantamount to farting in church. Worse, it could have imperilled juicy business deals.
After the last hearing in the House of Lords it has been clearly established that torturers must indeed be brought to justice. The way is open for actions against a whole series of undesirables, torturers and murderers from Indonesia to Israel, monsters from Serbia to Chad.
Mr Straw, who received such plaudits when he had Pinochet confined and when he decreed he could be extradited to stand trial in a Spanish court, has understandably been reviled for missing the second goal by letting Gen Pinochet go this week.
On close examination the circumstances surrounding Mr Straw's decision to free the Chilean tyrant on health grounds look bizarre, nay, murky. Though he was under the constant surveillance of the British authorities who had every incentive to look after his mental and physical health, it took an approach from the Chilean government to raise the question of the soundness of his mind. Gen Pinochet was medically examined - after Mr Straw had promised the results of the examination would be kept secret. It was only when the British courts forced the Home Secretary to give the result of these brief tests to the four European states who were seeking Pinochet's extradition that they came to light. When the Belgians, Swiss, Spaniards and French received the secret report they universally concluded that it was not grounds for the Chilean torturer to be allowed to go free.
Gen Pinochet's release on health grounds conveniently let Mr Straw out of a grand dilemma. Had he refused to extradite Gen Pinochet to Spain he would, under the terms of the Torture Convention, had to have put him on trial in Britain.
Hugh O'Shaughnessy is the author of Pinochet: the Politics of Torture, Latin America Bureau, London, £10.
The Munster MEP, Mr John Cushnahan, said yesterday that the Pinochet "fiasco" underlines the "need for the establishment of an International Criminal Court to ensure that the deeds of war criminals and dictators do not go unpunished".