Argentina wants to try Pinochet for killing general in Buenos Aires

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) -- An Argentine judge on Friday asked Chile's Supreme Court to extradite former dictator Augusto Pinochet for the 1974 killing in Argentina of former Chilean army chief Carlos Prats and his wife.

"We have issued a request for the arrest of Pinochet and of several other members of DINA (Chile's disbanded secret police). There is an international request for his arrest and a formal extradition request," said a senior official from the office of Judge Juan Jose Galeano, requesting anonymity.

Pinochet, 84, is already fighting a possible trial in Chile for human rights abuses during his 17-year rule, which ended in 1990. He returned home this year after 503 days under arrest in Britain, which ruled he was too old and sick to undergo trial in Spain as requested by a Spanish judge.

Former Chilean army chief Prats -- who opposed Pinochet's coup overthrowing President Salvador Allende in 1973 -- and his wife, Sofia Cuthbert, were killed by a car bomb in the quiet Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo in September 1974.

"Pinochet should be arrested as soon as the Chilean courts are notified. ... The judge in charge of the case has the obligation to order preventive imprisonment for the accused," said a lawyer for the Prats family, Hernan Quesada, in Chile.

"The existing evidence in the case clearly proves the participation of Pinochet and the DINA in the crime," he said.

Alleged former DINA (National Intelligence Directorate) agent Arancibia Clavel was detained in 1996 in the killing of Prats and his wife and is on trial in Buenos Aires. He denied the killing and even that he was a DINA agent.

Prats' daughters said early in October they would seek to put Pinochet on trial in Argentina. Prats fled into exile after Pinochet overthrew the leftist Allende.

A lawyer for Pinochet, Gustavo Collao, said that his client, who denies involvement in rights abuses, did not recognize Argentina's jurisdiction in the Prats case.

British police arrested Pinochet in late 1998 following an extradition request by a Spanish judge. At the time, the Argentine government supported Chile's argument that Pinochet should only be tried in his own country. Three thousand people were killed or "disappeared" during Pinochet's rule.

Chilean Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza reacted cautiously, distancing the dispute from both his own and the Argentine governments.

"The Chilean courts will have to decide," Insulza said.

Pinochet drew up the rules to restore democracy in Chile and included provisions guaranteeing he would be free from prosecution for his alleged involvement in human rights abuses. But a Chilean court stripped him of his immunity earlier this year, just months after he returned home from Britain.

The Argentine judge investigating the case believes her own country's military intelligence helped the Chileans assassinate Prats. At the time Argentina was a democracy, but a coup in 1976 began seven years of bloody military dictatorship.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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