Paris, 25 Nov (EFE).- Former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón recalled the arrest warrant he issued in 1998 against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, when he was in London, and confirmed that, with the intervention, “international criminal law changed” and not doing so would be a “betrayal of the victims.

The website of the newspaper Le Figaro published an interview with Garzón this Saturday, just 25 years after the House of Lords of the United Kingdom ruled that the former head of state, in this case Pinochet, should not enjoy immunity for the crimes committed. under his command.

“The process was very complex and there were many factors that worked against me. “Every stage must be based on the law to prevent the dictator’s friends, who are numerous and well-established in the Spanish Government, from taking over this matter,” said the former judge.

“Without my intention, international criminal law changed” after the dictator’s arrest in London on October 16, 1998, added the legal expert, who recalled that the law contributed “to consolidating international justice as an indispensable actor in the fight against impunity.”

“Any other option is a betrayal of the victims,” he argued.

“The main consequence is the belief that universal jurisdiction (jurisdiction) is possible and that no perpetrator of crimes against humanity is protected by national law,” said Garzón.

But it also led to legal reforms in some countries, such as Spain, that made it “almost impossible to prosecute crimes against humanity.”

Garzón recalled his quarrel with the then Spanish Foreign Minister, the conservative Abel Matutes, who supported Pinochet’s return to Chile because of his poor health, and whom he accused of “meddling”.

Finally, on March 2, 2000, British Minister Jack Straw rejected Pinochet’s extradition to Spain and granted him freedom.

The former judge found the medical reports supporting the dictator’s poor condition “incoherent” and recalled that he boarded a plane back to Chile in a wheelchair and disembarked “with total mobility and a very healthy appearance.” EFE

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