Video clip and transcript of interview with UK Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn carried out for the forthcoming documentary ‘Britain and the Other 9/11’, which I am co-directing with John McEvoy.
Pablo Navarrete / Alborada Films*
The 2nd of March marked 25 years since Tony Blair’s New Labour government sent Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet back to Chile. In 1998 a Spanish judge had requested his extradition on charges including torture and conspiracy to commit murder. Pinochet was arrested but was never extradited to Spain; he left the UK on 2 March 2000 and arrived back in Chile the next day. Then home secretary Jack Straw claimed a medical test had shown Pinochet was not fit to stand trial, allowing him to argue that the decision to send him back to Chile instead of extraditing him to Spain had been made on compassionate rather than political grounds.
DeClassified UK journalist John McEvoy, who is co-directing the documentary “Britain and the other 9/11” with me, interviewed UK Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn for our film, which investigates the hidden role of Britain in the destruction of Chile’s democracy and support for Pinochet.
In the below clip Corbyn refutes Straw’s version of events and calls the Blair government’s decision to return Pinochet to Chile “disgraceful”. See below for a transcript of the clip.
A slightly shorter version of this video has been shared on the Alborada Films Facebook, Instagram and X (Twitter) accounts.
To help us get us complete “Britain and the other 9/11” (Alborada Films) we have launched a crowdfunding campaign. Any support in helping us tell this story is greatly appreciated.
Transcript
Jeremy Corbyn:
The big news was in 1998 when the application for his extradition from Britain to Spain was granted by a Spanish court and conveyed to Britain as an urgent extradition order. And it landed at the Home Office and the Home Office acted very quickly. And the police then arrested Pinochet whilst he was in hospital and he was then subsequently put under house arrest, which he was for… 500 days I think in the end.
Chant: Extradition! There’s only one decision!
I was very involved in the campaign to ensure that he was extradited to Spain, where he’d face trial. There was a lot of pressure to return him to Chile, where he would not face trial. And I remember speaking to both Jack Straw and Tony Blair at the time to say I was very pleased that Pinochet had been arrested.
And they sort of looked to me and seemed slightly surprised that I would say this, and I said, “Well, it’s good that we’re upholding the extradition request of Spain for him”. And he was then fighting it in the British courts, and we fought it through the British courts.
Jeremy Corbyn (Archive):
What we’re doing is asking tomorrow that justice be done in respect of the people of Chile. But obviously, the implications of that go far wider. Immediately behind me is a cross and a photograph, in memory of Salvador Allende, who died defending democracy and the constitution. And the right of the poor, the right of the dispossessed to have their share of wealth and their share of power.
Jeremy Corbyn:
All the time there was pressure to allow Pinochet to go back. It was later revealed by the Belgians who took out a separate case that a memorandum had been sent to Jack Straw as home secretary, which was, I’ll paraphrase it, it was something like, “You must be aware that the General Pinochet is an elderly gentleman and we’re concerned about his health and if it was to emerge that he was physically unfit, would the Home Secretary be minded to allow him to return to Chile?” Like an invitation.
This concoction about his health was then developed and we were told that he was a man who was losing his memory, age was taking over, and he would not be fit to face trial.
I received a copy of his medical report from Norfolk Park Hospital, which said the opposite. His health conditions were normal for a person of his age and there was no loss of cognitive functions.
I confronted Jack Straw with this on the day that he was due to announce that he was going back, and Straw said to me, “How did you get that information? And surely, you’re somebody that believes in human rights, you wouldn’t want put somebody on trial who wasn’t fit to face trial”. I said, “But this man is fit to face trial. What you’re doing is conniving with the right in Chile to take him away, to get him back to Chile”.
Straw then made that decision, which in my view was utterly disgraceful. And he was then put on a Chilean Air Force plane that just happened to be waiting for him at Stansted, taken to Chile. He went on the plane in a wheelchair and with doctors in attendance and all the rest of it, and then walked off the plane in Santiago with full military uniform and soldiers waiting to greet him.
*Article originally published in Substack / Pablo Navarrete.
(Images: Alborada Films)
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