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Mr. Straw: I fully understand the right hon. Gentleman's concern in the matter. As he will know, similar concerns were expressed to me by Lord Biffen on behalf of the hospital. I also know that very great inconvenience was caused to patients in the London Clinic. I shall certainly take it up with the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, and I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney): May I just mention to my right hon. Friend that, as a Minister of State in the Foreign Office for four and a half years between 1975 and 1979, I heard testimonies repeated by family after family about the torture and disappearance of many of those who were lost? Tens of thousands of people were affected by the Pinochet regime. May I also remind my right hon. Friend and the shadow Home Secretary that that included the torture of a British citizen, Sheila Cassidy? Although I am willing to accept the decision that my right hon. Friend has had to make, I think that we should at least remind everyone that Pinochet received our judicial process in a fair way and had a fair hearing--which he denied tens of thousands of his own citizens.
Mr. Straw: I think that my hon. Friend's point is very well taken. He knows from his earlier experience of the very serious problems that affected the people of Chile in the period following the assassination of President Allende.
Mr. John Wilkinson (Ruislip-Northwood): Is it not worth reminding the House that in December 1997, when the Labour Government were in power, the senator came to the United Kingdom as a VIP guest, when he was commander-in-chief of the Chilean army? The VIP reception that he received when he came in December 1998, at the behest of the Foreign Office, was essentially no different. Now, the important thing is to forget this sorry episode as soon as possible--the least said, the soonest mended.
May I also say how pleased I am that, in 10 days, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), will go to Santiago for the inauguration of the new democratic Government under President Lagos? The Minister will find that Chile is a wholly democratic country which is under the rule of law that it has had ever since Pinochet voluntarily relinquished power.
Mr. Straw:
I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will attend the presidential inauguration, which I believe takes place on Thursday. It is right to say that the elections in Chile were democratic and fully representative.
Let me just deal with the myth about Senator Pinochet being welcomed as a VIP guest. My understanding is that when he came to this country he was provided with VIP
facilities at Heathrow, as is routine, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was aware of his visit. At that stage we had no knowledge that any extradition warrant was going to be issued in the Madrid court. It was not until I was on an aeroplane travelling to Avignon in France--to make a speech about the need to modernise extradition procedures, as it happens--that I was passed a copy of The Guardian, where I read a small item saying that Senator Pinochet was in the country and might be the subject of extradition proceedings, whereupon I suggested to my private secretary that we needed to find out something more about the matter.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley):
I feel that a great injustice has been done today to the thousands of people who disappeared or were tortured or murdered, as well as to their families, many of whom have spent night after night and month after month outside the House of Commons protesting about General Pinochet. It is a tragedy that this country, which has signed up to all the human rights conventions and the convention on torture--the list of conventions is as long as one's arm--allowed General Pinochet to come here without prosecuting him ourselves. Why did we wait for Spain to ask for his extradition? Why did we not do it ourselves? We are obliged under the torture convention to prosecute those who come here and are accused of heinous tortures in their own country.
When further medical evidence was requested, a further examination should have been possible. There appeared to be doubt. Those who appeared on behalf of Amnesty International thought that it was essential that a further examination should be carried out. Why was that not done?
My right hon. Friend has not explained satisfactorily why General Pinochet was given an assurance that his medical details would remain secret. As my right hon. Friend knows, it is possible to make such details available in the public interest. It should not have required other countries to make that request to the courts.
There are clearly weaknesses in English law that need to be rectified. What proposals does my right hon. Friend have to investigate those weaknesses and ensure that if someone similar, such as Saddam Hussein or any of the Iraqi war criminals, visited this--
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Lord):
Order. The hon. Lady has said enough for the Home Secretary to respond to.
Mr. Straw:
Of course I understand the strong feelings involved, particularly those of victims and relatives affected in Chile. However, we cannot deal with such issues simply on the basis of emotion. If we did, there would be a great danger of falling into the trap of double standards--applying different principles to those of whom we approve from those that we apply to those of whom we disapprove. Many Conservative Members have fallen into that trap.
My hon. Friend talks about our being signed up to all the human rights conventions. It is precisely because we are signed up to human rights conventions, and we cannot pick and choose which articles of those conventions we apply, that I have had to come to my decision. The plain, unalterable and unanswerable fact is that Senator Pinochet's medical condition is such that to have
extradited him to Spain would have been a palpable breach of article 6 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial.
The test of fitness to stand trial in Spain is in all material respects the same as the test to stand trial in the United Kingdom. Moreover, for reasons that I have explained, there is no question but that I could not have passed the responsibility for determining fitness to Spain. It was a decision that I had to make. If my hon. Friend had been in my position, faced with the same evidence and the duties imposed by all the international human rights conventions to which she refers, she would have had to come to the same conclusion as I did.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Before I call the next hon. Member to put a question, I ask for much shorter questions and, if possible, shorter answers. There is another major statement to be made and we must protect the debate on Welsh affairs.
Mr. Gerald Howarth (Aldershot):
I welcome the fact that Senator Pinochet, a true friend of the United Kingdom, has returned to his home country--which is the proper forum to hear the allegations made against him.
Does the Home Secretary accept that had he acted more decisively in October 1998, this thoroughly unsatisfactory and disgraceful fiasco might have been avoided? I have some sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman in his difficulties over judicial review. The House should hold him to account, not the judges of our country. Is it not unacceptable that the Home Secretary was obliged to extend the incarceration of Britain's only political prisoner at the behest of foreign Governments?
The Home Secretary was saying that, were it not for the fact that the senator was unfit to plead, he would have bowed to the request of a foreign Government. What implications will that have in future for visitors from China, Zimbabwe and other countries of whose practices we disapprove?
Mr. Straw:
We may geographically be an island but judicially we are not. We have international obligations to other countries that go back centuries. Extradition is one of them. The procedures are over-complicated, as this case illustrated--but they are such that other states are able to request extradition of a fugitive from this country, and we are able to do likewise. International order, and order within each country, is enhanced by the availability of extradition.
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North):
The decision will undoubtedly be a bitter blow for all the people who suffered at the hands of the Pinochet regime, but I accept--as someone who campaigned for Pinochet to face justice--that it would be wrong for the senator to be placed in the dock if his health is as claimed by doctors. We shall soon see whether there is any recovery once he is in Chile.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in a country such as ours, governed by the rule of law and justice, it is absolutely nauseating that a former Prime Minister, Lady Thatcher, should act as the chief apologist of Pinochet
and minimise the tortures and mass murders that occurred under his regime? She has brought only disgrace upon her name and reputation.
Mr. Straw:
I never thought that Lady Thatcher's comments were consistent with support for the international rule of law, but that is for her to explain.
One of the key questions put on my behalf to the medical team was whether there was any possibility that Senator Pinochet could have feigned his symptoms. We have to rely on the best medical evidence available and the conclusion of the doctors and of the chief medical officer was:
The senator's condition could not be feigned.
It is hugely important in such a case that there is no fabrication of symptoms. I am as satisfied as I conceivably could be that there was none in this instance.
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