Freedom Of Information: Tories considered banning Chilean dictator from Britain

The unannounced visit to Britain by the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet in September 1998 presented Tony Blair's government with the first real challenge to its commitment to international human rights. But documents released by the Ministry of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act show that Pinochet's previous trips to this country had already raised concern at the heart of the Conservative administration.

Correspondence between the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office three years earlier reveal that the question of Pinochet's exclusion from Britain had already been considered by previous Home Secretaries. In an illuminating letter written to the head of the Latin American Department, a senior Home Office official complained that the Foreign Office had failed to warn the Home Secretary of the previous two visits.

R.G. Riley, an official at B3 Division, wrote:

As with Pinochet's last visit to the United Kingdom in June 1994, we were not informed in advance of his impending arrival here. I think it would have been helpful if we had been. Last year, we were in the less than ideal position of submitting advice to the Home Secretary about Pinochet's visit only after his presence here had been made public.

Riley then adds: "You will, of course, be aware that the decision on whether or not a foreign national should be allowed entry to the United Kingdom is one for the Home Office. It was the then Home Secretary who agreed, in May 1991, that Pinochet should not be excluded from the United Kingdom."

Failing to hide his irritation, the official signs off with:

I should be grateful if, in future, we could be warned in advance of any planned visits to the United Kingdom by Pinochet. Given his background, any visit he makes here is bound to attract

attention. We would like to be in a position to provide advice to our Ministers about this before they read about Pinochet's presence here in the papers.

These proved to be prescient words. Almost exactly three years after this letter was written, Pinochet returned to Britain for private medical treatment when he was arrested under a Spanish arrest warrant.

Pinochet, who was accused of widespread human rights violations both in Chile and abroad, was placed under house arrest in Britain while appealing the legal authority of the Spanish and British courts to try him. He was eventually released on medical grounds by the then Home Secretary Jack Straw without facing trial. He returned to Chile, where the judge Juan Guzmán began proceedings against him, requesting three days after his return to Chile the suspension of his parliamentary immunity.

Pinochet resigned his senatorial seat in 2002, after a Supreme Court ruling that he suffered from "vascular dementia" and therefore could not stand trial for human rights abuses - allegations of abuses had been made numerous times before his arrest, but never acted upon. In May 2004, Chile's supreme court ruled that he was capable of standing trial, and he was charged with several crimes in December of that year.

He eventually cheated the people of their justice by dying from congestive heart failure and pulmonary oedema on 10 December last year.

r.verkaik@independent.co.uk