ICFTU OnLine
258/981125/JK
ICFTU Calls on Britain to extradite Pinochet
Elsinore, Denmark. November 25 1998 (ICFTU OnLine): The ICFTU Executive Board, presently meeting in Elsinore (Denmark), welcomed "with great joy and calm determination" today’s decision of Britain’s Law Lords to lift General Pinochet’s claimed immunity from criminal prosecution as "a long-awaited but major step towards establishing justice as a leading principle for the community of nations." The Board saluted the Law Lords’ ruling as "a courageous and exemplary judicial statement".
In a letter to Mr Jack Straw, UK Home Secretary the ICFTU Executive Board expressed the hope that justice will now follow its course and that General Pinochet will be extradited.
The Board also stated that "Gen. Pinochet’s trial, when and wherever it takes place, is of direct interest to the international trade union movement". Recalling the memories of "all the Chilean trade union colleagues who had suffered enormous pains at the hands of Pinochet’s henchmen", the Board said the Law Lord’s ruling "brought an honourable tribute to all those who had sacrificed their lives in the name of democracy and justice".
Recalling its December 1997 Resolution calling for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Board urged affiliated organisations in all parts of the world to "strengthen efforts aiming at the installation of the Court in the shortest possible time" and instructed the ICFTU General Secretary to co-ordinate an international trade union campaign to that effect.
Finally, the Executive Board welcomed the launch of an ICFTU civil suit against Gen. Pinochet. In Brussels, yesterday 25th November, Mr. Michael Verhaeghe, a lawyer for the ICFTU and for a former Chilean union leader imprisoned by the junta, lodged a formal complaint for crimes against humanity against Pinochet and others, including a former Chilean navy captain whom the ICFTU accuses of ordering a regional stevedores’ union chief and three of his colleagues to be shot on a beach in Valparaiso, in September 1973.
Acting on a separate case involving six Chileans also suing Pinochet, the Brussels investigating Judge, Damien Vandermeersch, who specialises in international penal law, has since filed a request for Belgium to launch its own international arrest warrant against the former military leader. Legal sources expect the two cases to be merged within weeks.
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
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please contact: Luc Demaret on: 00 322 224 0212 - press@icftu.org