Philippe Sands (3:04)

An inspector had briefed her on the case before heading off to get the arrest warrant signed. Go home and wait for my call, he told her.

Jean Pateris (3:15)

I watched a bit of tv, actually had a glass of wine and waited for the call.

Philippe Sands (3:23)

And at about 9pm the call came.

Philippe Sands (3:28)

As Jean and the police officers stand outside Room 801 of the London clinic a few hours later, waiting for the nurse to wake the general, they spot a problem.

Jean Pateris (3:38)

Outside his door were two bodyguards. So I was told to tell them to leave the hospital.

Jean Pateris (3:46)

They said, with their hands on their hearts, I will not leave my General.

Jean Pateris (3:50)

I will not leave my General.

Philippe Sands (3:54)

Jean translates for the inspector.

Jean Pateris (3:57)

He said, well, tell them either they leave now or they get forcefully taken out. And one of them put his hand inside his jacket as if to take they thought was a gun. So everybody was hugely alert.

Jean Pateris (4:10)

Anyway, he was grabbed, but he's going for his telephone, not his, not a gun.

Philippe Sands (4:15)

Two uniformed police officers escort the guards out of the building. The tension eases. The nurse opens the door to room 801.

Jean Pateris (4:26)

So in we go into the bedroom and there is General Pinochet sitting in his bed in striped pajamas. And I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I thought, oh my God, it really is him. They said, jean, please tell him that he's under arrest for murder. So I said, listen, please listen to what this officer's gonna say. I'm gonna repeat to you in Spanish what he's saying. So, so he was arrested, the sergeant arrested him and then the whole thing is, you do not have to say anything, however it may harm your defense, blah, blah, blah. And he was absolutely livid. He said, I know who's behind this. It's that communist Garces.

Philippe Sands (5:08)

I'm Philippe Sands and from Radio 4 and the History podcast. This is the Arrest, the inside story of the race to apprehend Auguste Pinochet and bring him to justice.

Philippe Sands (5:21)

Episode 5 the Arrest.

Philippe Sands (5:29)

It's the next day and Jean the interpreter is still buzzing from the night before. She can't wait to tell her Chilean born mother, now living in the uk, Jean had spared her a call in the early hours of the morning when she'd finally left the clinic. But she hadn't been able to resist.

Jean Pateris (5:47)

Contacting her sister to say, guess what I've just done?

Jean Pateris (5:53)

She said, what? I've just arrested General Pinochet, for God's sake. So she was thrilled because, you know, she knew a bit more about him than I did.

Philippe Sands (6:02)

When Jean's mother picks up the phone the next day, I thought she was.

Jean Pateris (6:07)

Going to say, oh, darling, how exciting. I couldn't believe what she said. How outrageous. What a poor man. Honestly, the man was absolutely the best thing that Chile ever had. Because when she lived in Chile, she said, at least when he was there, you knew what the price of a loaf of bread was going to be. When Allende was in there, you didn't know what. Because inflation was up and down all over the place, and things were not so constant. You could leave your car door open, you could leave your house door open. Everything was safe. That's what she said.

Philippe Sands (6:39)

Jean's mother isn't the only one who feels this way. As word of Pinochet's arrest spreads to Chile, violent protests break out. Demonstrators tear down security barriers outside the British Embassy. Chile's government formally objects. It says the British authorities should have respected the former leader's immunity as a senator for life. And that view is echoed abroad by Pinochet's political backers. There's anger, too, from his opponents. Hundreds of Chileans in Britain demand justice outside the London clinic where he's now under house arrest. They want him extradited to Spain to face trial. There is, of course, joy as well, much of it mixed with disbelief. So many thought this day would never come.

Philippe Sands (7:36)

Laura Gonzalez Vera, widow of Carmelo Soria, the UN diplomat whose murder had been crucial to the starting of the Spanish case, was in Madrid when she heard the news.

Jean Pateris (7:49)

I felt happy, of course, and there were a lot of people.

David Dimbleby (7:52)

There were a lot of foreign journalists.

Philippe Sands (7:56)

Baltazar Garzon, the judge who'd sent the arrest warrant, was at a bullfighting festival. When he heard the news, he'd driven straight back to Madrid. The legal work was not over.

Philippe Sands (8:09)

The lawyer Juan Garces, who'd convinced the judge to take the case, had stayed home on tenterhooks since the warrant had been sent to London.

Juan Garces (8:22)

The next day, early, I looked at the Chilean press and I saw in the front page on the Santiago papers that Pinochet had been arrested in London. And about half an hour later, I received a call from Judge Garzon telling me, listen, I have News. And I said, yes, he was arrested. And he said, but how do you know? He had received the information directly and was surprised that I was aware of.

Carlos Castrosana (8:51)

John Garces called me Saturday morning and told he has been arrested.

Philippe Sands (8:56)

This is Carlos Castrosana, the prosecutor who'd been instrumental in bringing the case before the Spanish courts.

Carlos Castrosana (9:04)

And my response was, who has been arrested? And he said, pinochet has been arrested.

Philippe Sands (9:10)

Did you believe it?

Carlos Castrosana (9:11)

I could not believe it. I could not believe it.

Philippe Sands (9:19)

The signing of a warrant for the arrest of Augusta Pinochet was a landmark moment. Nuremberg was the first time that the leaders of a country who'd committed international crimes were held to account before an international tribunal. Pinochet's arrest was the first time that the former head of state of one country, in this case Chile, had been charged with international crimes and arrested in another country. It was seen as a warning to dictators everywhere, past and present, that they could no longer grant themselves immunity from prosecution and travel the world freely in retirement. The proceedings that would follow before the English courts were unprecedented. For a start, the decision to charge Pinochet with the crime of murder, rather than an international crime such as genocide or torture or disappearances, would be challenged and immediately give rise to much additional work for Judge Garzon and the lawyer Garces in Madrid.

Philippe Sands (10:26)

And then there would be the not so minor matter of whether, as his lawyers would argue, Pinochet's claim of absolute immunity as a former head of state would meant that he could not be arrested in England or extradited to Spain.

Philippe Sands (10:43)

Every act has consequences, expected and unexpected, and this one would be no different. And every act gives rise to questions. One that I am often asked is, why was the case brought in Spain of all places? Did you think about this at the time? Because there's a legitimacy issue. How can Spain, which had its own problems in the 30s and afterwards and never did anything about them, go to Chile and say, you have not behaved correctly?

Carlos Castrosana (11:18)

I've had always the clear idea that for us, Pinochet was like the exorcism of Francois. We did to Pinochet what we should have done to Franco. But we were a nave.

Philippe Sands (11:35)

The prosecutor Castrosana told me this in May 2021. He was in Madrid and I was in Totnes, a small town in Devon, visiting my mother in law, Maria Elena de la Iglesia.

Philippe Sands (11:50)

Lena, as she is known, was born in Spain shortly before the Spanish Civil War. Her father, a Republican army colonel, opposed Franco, so the family fled to England. Eighty years later, I shared with Lena what the prosecutor told me about how the Pinochet case started. What was the name of the Spanish victim who got the case going in Madrid? She asked after I finished telling the story. Soria. Carmelo Soria, I replied. She looked at me and was silent for a long moment. And then she said, of course, cousin Carmelo.

Philippe Sands (12:36)

She drew a family tree to show how Carmelo Soria became her distant cousin through marriage. And now, said Lena, because I was also part of the family, also by marriage, he's your cousin too.

Philippe Sands (12:52)

In this way, 23 years after the Pinochet case, I learned that his arrest was a family matter. And it wasn't the only personal connection.

Philippe Sands (13:04)

I'm a barrister, and on October 30, 1998, two weeks after Pinochet's arrest, I was in Paris working on a case. I was also there to attend the setting of my grandfather's gravestone. I met my wife at the large wooden gates that mark the entrance to the Pantin cemetery on the outskirts of the city. I've just received an approach from Auguste Pinochet's lawyers, I told her. They wanted me to argue that he had immunity from the jurisdiction of the English courts. Will you do it? My wife asked in a firm voice. I reminded her of the cab rank principle, the rule that requires barristers to act like taxi drivers, to take every fare, to turn down none because of politics or personality. Will you do it? She asked again. Well, you know the rules, so yes, that was my inclination, I told her. Fine, she said in a tone that was both irritated and sweet. But if you do it, I will divorce you.

Philippe Sands (14:13)

After the arrest, there would be rulings on immunity, on extradition, on matters of fitness for trial, and views would be divided on how the whole story eventually turned out. But one thing was clear. The world was changed. A precedent was set so that anyone, even a former president, would would know that if they committed an international crime and later traveled abroad, the risk of a tap on the shoulder was real.

Philippe Sands (14:44)

And oh yes, just in case you want to know, I did play a role in the proceedings that followed. And yes, I'm still very happily married.

Philippe Sands (15:03)

The arrest is presented by me, Philippe Sands. The series producer is Simon Tulit. The production coordinators are Helena Warwick Cross and Tammy Snow. Sound design and mixing is by Tom Brignall. The editor is Matt Willis and the commissioning editor is Hugh Levinson. With special thanks also to to Polly Hope and Tristan Redman.

Philippe Sands (15:29)

Thank you for listening to the Arrest. If you've enjoyed it, why not check out another series here in the History podcast, such as Invisible Hands.

David Dimbleby (15:39)

I'm David Dimbleby and from the history podcast and BBC Radio 4, this is invisible Hands, the story of the free market revolution. The free market isn't solving the problem of homelessness.

Philippe Sands (15:52)

Classic liberal values of free speech, free.

David Dimbleby (15:55)

Enterprise, free markets, a hidden force that changed Britain forever. Popular capitalism is a crusade and the invisible hands that shaped it.

Philippe Sands (16:06)

I thought I was a conservative. I thought I was a Conservative. There's a massive schism between those who believe in the continuity of our society and those who wish to destroy it.

David Dimbleby (16:14)

Listen to Invisible Hands on BBC Sounds now.

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Philippe Sands (17:13)

Going to come out of your head.

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