Chile's Foreign Minister, Mr Jose Miguel Insulza, is due to arrive in London today for what is likely to be a highly charged meeting with the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, to press his government's case for the release of Gen Augusto Pinochet.
The meeting will take place against a background of intense anticipation following yesterday's confirmation that the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, has requested an extra seven days to consider whether to allow Spain's request for Gen Pinochet's extradition to proceed to the courts.
Until Bow Street Magistrates' Court informs the Home Office of its decision (and last night that had not happened) Mr Straw has until next Wednesday to grant an "order to proceed" or release Gen Pinochet.
Chile's insistence that it will vigorously contest Wednesday's 32 vote by the Law Lords that Gen Pinochet can not claim sovereign immunity is being met with equal determination by Spain's ruling Popular Party, which has said governments should not interfere in judicial decisions. The party's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Jose Maria Robles Fraga, told BBC radio yesterday: "This is a very delicate subject in which politicians should respect judicial decisions."
However, in what appears to be an attempt to distance the party from the original decision by two Spanish judges to bring charges of genocide and torture against Gen Pinochet, Mr Fraga said: "We have done what it was in our hands to do, which is to respect and help the [Spanish] judges' decision to proceed. We didn't ask the judges to proceed one way or the other."
The legal process in the Pinochet case is however, far from being resolved. Not only does Mr Straw have the Spanish extradition request on his desk but ones from France and Switzerland too.
If Bow Street Magistrates' Court grants Mr Straw's request he will use the time to consider written submissions from the Chilean government and other interested parties. All along the line, the Home Office has stressed that Mr Straw will be acting in a quasijudicial, rather than political, manner. Even if the space between the two is sometimes blurred it is being impressed upon him by the Chilean ambassador and Tory politicians that the decision must be made swiftly.
If he grants the "order to proceed" with the Spanish application, a date will then be set for Gen Pinochet's first court appearance at Bow Street Magistrates' Court. Extradition applications can be challenged at each stage and Gen Pinochet's lawyers can seek leave for a judicial review of the order, which could see the whole process end up back in the House of Lords.
If that appeal fails and Gen Pinochet appears in court, a magistrate's decision to accept the Spanish extradition request is also open to challenge.
The Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, again called on Mr Straw to end Gen Pinochet's incarceration and send him back to Chile. The former defence secretary, Mr Michael Portillo, said Gen Pinochet's arrest was "indefensible" and compared Britain's relationship with the Chilean government to that with the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams. "I don't like what we've done with Gerry Adams . . . but it's our business what we do with Gerry Adams and it's their business what they're doing with General Pinochet."
Gen Pinochet will try to persuade Britain that he is suffering from a stress-related disorder and should therefore not be extradited to Spain to face trial, the London Times says today. The paper reports that Gen Pinochet was assessed yesterday by a leading psychiatrist.