Hi °C | Lo °C From GILES TREMLETT A SPANISH judge yesterday sent Britain a detailed list of crimes for which General Pinochet is wanted to stand trial in Spain, and widened the indictment to include the deaths of nearly 3,000 people.
The wide-ranging charge-sheet, drawn up by Judge Baltasar Garzon, will serve as the basis for his request to extradite the general.
Judge Garzon also formally charged the former dictator with genocide, torture and terrorism.
The 300-page document alleges that the general personally oversaw a co-ordinated campaign of kidnapping, torture and murder, and that the ``dirty war'' was waged in nearly a dozen countries, including the United States.
STOCKBROKER
Sixteen Spaniards were among more than 2,500 named victims who were allegedly killed or disappeared during the general's 17 years in power after the 1973 coup that toppled the left-wing government of President Allende.
Among the names on the list of the disappeared is William Beausire, who held dual nationality. The British-Chilean was last seen at a torture camp in Santiago.
The stockbroker, who held a British passport, was detained because his sister was going out with one of Allende's nephews.
Judge Garzon's indictment alleges that he spent seven months in different detention centres before vanishing in June 1975.
``Augusto Pinochet masterminded and led ... a systematic criminal plan of illegal detentions, kidnappings, torture, killings, forced displacement and the selective disappearance of some 3,000 people,'' the indictment reads.
Judge Garzon claims that General Pinochet set up the infamous DINA secret police to carry out the campaign against his enemies.
``DINA was a criminal organisation whose job was to carry out President Pinochet's orders to repress and eliminate those people who he considered to be his political enemies.''
TORTURED
Judge Garzon specifically accuses the general of ordering the bomb attack that killed Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean Ambassador to the US, and his American assistant in Washington in 1976.
More than 160 pages of the document contains all the names of Pinochet's alleged victims. A special section details 35 cases of children, aged between six and 17, who were allegedly tortured or executed by Pinochet's regime.
The document also spelt out in detail the numerous torture methods allegedly used in the detention centres.
Judge Garzon based his allegations of genocide on the general's alleged persecution of the Mapuche Indians, Jews and of the Christians for Socialism group. The judge also claimed that the systematic elimination of political opponents was genocide.
The judge said that the British courts are now obliged to extradite General Pinochet to face trial in Spain.
``Extradition cannot be denied unless it is because he is to be tried in Britain or unless, after relevant changes are first carried out to the legal system and the constitution, he is wanted by the Chilean courts,'' said Judge Garzon.
Meanwhile, in London Pinochet's lawyers have asked that a decision two weeks ago by Britain's highest court, the Law Lords, that the ex-dictator was not immune from prosecution should be set aside.
(The Times, London)
