Lawyers representing the former Chilean dictator, Gen Augusto Pinochet, yesterday cleared the first hurdle in the battle against his extradition to Spain when the High Court in London quashed two arrest warrants against him.
However, he will remain under arrest pending the outcome of an appeal to the House of Lords by the Crown Prosecution Service next week.
The human rights group, Amnesty International, immediately condemned the decision by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, that Gen Pinochet was "entitled to immunity as former sovereign from the criminal and civil process of the English courts".
It said the High Court ruling was out of step with the spirit of existing international law and the soon-to-be-established International Criminal Court which would have the power to try former heads of state.
The extradition request, brought by a Spanish judge, Mr Baltasar Garzon, alleged that Gen Pinochet was responsible for the deaths of at least 4,000 people of various nationalities, including Spanish, British and Chilean.
Gen Pinochet, who remains under armed guard at the London Clinic following back surgery, was arrested on October 16th, but could be moved to another London hospital on Friday when it is expected a formal bail application will be heard by a magistrate. In his ruling, which dismissed the two arrest warrants but "stayed" the order on the second pending the House of Lords appeal, Lord Bingham observed that it was a matter of "acute public concern" that those who abused sovereign power to commit crimes against humanity should not escape trial or appropriate punishment.
However, even the charter which established the International War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 did not invalidate the principle "that one sovereign state will not impugn another in relation to its sovereign acts". The High Court also awarded Gen Pinochet his legal costs, estimated at £350,000 sterling.
In a separate development, a group of alleged victims of Gen Pinochet's regime were dealt a severe blow when the Attorney General, Mr John Morris, rejected their application for the former dictator to be prosecuted on torture charges in a British court. The Attorney General's Office said the application had been refused because there was insufficient admissible evidence of an offence under British law.