General Augusto Pinochet, former president and current senator for life of Chile, awaits extradition from Britain to Spain. The General, under house arrest at a home outside of London, was arrested on the behest of the Spanish judiciary on October 16, 1998. Pinochet, in Britain for medical treatment, was travelling on a diplomatic passport. His arrest sparked a storm of controversy. Chile mounted a vociferous diplomatic protest. Switzerland, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden subsequently began criminal proceedings against the former dictator. The Spanish request was based on a court finding that the general was responsible for the murder of Spanish citizens while he had been president of Chile. On October 22, Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon broadened his arrest warrant to include allegations of genocide, torture and terrorism involving 94 people of different nationalities. The English High Court dismissed the warrant on the grounds that neither Spain nor Britain had criminal jurisdiction. They found that under English law, a head of state was "entitled to immunity as a former sovereign from the criminal and civil process of the English Courts." Essentially, the court said, by law, Pinochet and his minions can do whatever they please, to whomever, as long as they do it in Chile. A dissenting opinion, by Justice Collins, rejected the argument that murder, torture and disappearance are part of the sovereign functions of a head of state: "Unfortunately, history shows that it has indeed on occasions been state policy to exterminate or to oppress particular groups. One does not have to look very far back in history to see examples of that sort of thing having happened. There is in my judgment no justification for reading any limitation based on the nature of the crimes committed into the immunity which exists." Others disagreed with the court majority as well. The Law lords, members of the House of Lords who are former High Court judges, overruled the court and allowed the extradition process to go forward. British Home Secretary Jack Straw made the official declaration allowing extradition to proceed. Information linking one of the deciding Law Lords to Amnesty International, who had entered the case as a third party intervenor, was enough to get the ruling thrown out. Spain and Pinochet were back before a new set of Law Lords. This time, the Law Lords ruled that the former President could not be extradited for any crimes committed before December 8, 1988, when the United Kingdom ratified the International Convention Against Torture. The Spanish National High Court responded with a list of 42 cases of torture or conspiracy to torture after 8 December 1988. The Law Lords ruled in Spain's favor. Jack Straw, in April 1999, again ordered the extradition process may proceed. The issue is once again with the British courts. This time the question of Pinochet's immunity has been removed. Whether the 82-year-old general ever faces trial in Spain is anybody's guess. But the genie has gotten out of the bottle. Heads of terror states who are not necessarily Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein are open to prosecution in third countries. The close ties between the U.S. and Pinochet are well known. If a Spanish court starts digging, how deep will they have to go before they find the U.S. government and corporations? How will our near-random accusations of crimes against humanity look then?