Word: guzman
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...legally able to avoid the checks. But this is part of his legal team's strategy of delaying the process and also of getting Judge Juan Guzman removed from the case on technical grounds, such as procedural matters that he may have carried out incorrectly. Their immediate aim is to stop the doctors from examining Pinochet and to stop Guzman from interrogating the general...
...Well, Pinochet is very powerful, so I would have to say they're 50-50. Of course, Judge Guzman says that he'll simply apply the law, and that if Pinochet refuses to show up for the medical examination, he'll have to arrest him and have him brought for tests. That's what the law says, but whether it will happen remains to be seen. Pinochet's lawyers are doing their best to find ways of preventing an interrogation from happening...
...fact, this ruling was simply a technicality. The court threw out the indictment on the grounds that Judge Juan Guzman had not first interrogated Pinochet before issuing it, as required by Chilean law. The judge had argued that he'd sent Pinochet a questionnaire when the general was being held under house arrest in London, and although Pinochet hadn't answered any of the questions, he'd returned the questionnaire with the comment "I am innocent of all charges against me." Guzman had taken that to be a deposition, but many other lawyers said it didn't count, because...
...assumed that Judge Guzman will now simply go ahead and interrogate Pinochet, to start the process again...
...Despite Monday's slap-down of Judge Guzman, Pinochet's legal road ahead remains blighted. To be sure, he's unlikely to elicit much sympathy from the same Chilean Supreme Court that last August stripped the general of the immunity from prosecution he'd authored for himself as a precondition for stepping down in 1990. Of course it's quite possible that the high court will uphold Monday's technical ruling, but its August decision presumably leaves the field open to Pinochet's accusers to simply keep trying. And that would leave the general's attorneys to fall back...