Word: pinochets
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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General Augusto Pinochet looks set to regain his freedom, but not necessarily his dignity. Britain's Home Secretary Jack Straw announced Tuesday that a panel of doctors had found the 84-year-old former Chilean dictator medically unfit to stand trial, which leaves Britain inclined to end extradition proceedings and send Pinochet home. Straw has given Spain, which wants to extradite the general to stand trial on charges of torture arising out of the deaths of some of the 3,000 political opponents slain during his 16-year reign, until Tuesday to persuade him otherwise, but has made clear that...
...Straw's statement was welcomed by the Chilean government, but was condemned by the families of Pinochet's victims, who have argued that the general's health should become a factor in considering his fate only aftera trial. Officials of the present government suggest the general may yet face charges in Chile, but this is made unlikely not only by his health and the immunity he decreed for himself at the end of his reign, but also by the fact that his supporters are well placed to win Saturday's runoff presidential election. Nonetheless, the general's release...