Former president Mary Robinson said yesterday she had no recollection of receiving a letter of request, while she was on a state visit to Chile in March 1995, to meet a human rights activist whose father had died at the hands of Gen Augusto Pinochet's secret police.
There was controversy during that visit when Mrs Robinson shook Gen Pinochet's hand in a line-up before a state banquet, something Mrs Robinson said yesterday she had not known would happen and had been very unhappy about at the time.
A letter published in The Irish Times yesterday claimed that human rights activist Carmen Soria wrote to Mrs Robinson requesting a meeting over the death of her father, Carmelo Soria Espinoza, a United Nations diplomat who had been abducted, tortured and murdered by the Chilean secret police, Dina, in 1976.
The letter, from John T Kavanagh of Churchtown, Dublin, said her request was refused and the letter never officially acknowledged at the time. Mr Kavanagh said that in January 1997, the then secretary to the president, Peter Ryan, wrote to him acknowledging they had received the letter from Carmen two years earlier. He said the "constitutional requirement of [ Mrs Robinson's] office meant that it would not be appropriate for her to intervene".
Yesterday Mrs Robinson said she didn't recall a letter and added: "I would be very sorry if any person on a human rights issue wrote and felt they didn't get a response because my record on human rights is clear. I was in Chile a number of times as the UN high commissioner for human rights and I was always available to meet human rights people . . . the idea I would not be available to meet a human rights person isn't true of my record."
Meanwhile, Mr Ryan, who is now an assistant secretary at the Department of the Taoiseach, told The Irish Times he didn't remember a letter either. "It was 11 years ago. I would love to be able to say 'yes' or 'no'. But on a general basis it was policy to advise in cases where we were asked to intervene on a matter that the president couldn't do it as it interfered [ with] her role.
Asked if he would check back on files to see if a letter did exist, Mr Ryan said: "These are events that happened over 11 years ago. I don't see the benefit of doing this at this remove."
Mrs Robinson was in Dublin yesterday to receive a medal from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for outstanding contribution to public health.
She told The Irish Times she remembered the controversial handshake with General Pincohet "vividly".
"We were completely shell-shocked. I don't know how that was arranged and I was very unhappy about it. I could feel the tension in the room. I would say 20 per cent of the people there were happy to see him and the rest not at all," she said.
"I was very unhappy. There are lots of stories, including parts of that letter, that are absolutely new to me."