Former British PM considers cancelling trips because she fears being indicted for war crimes.
By Patrick Wintour, London Observer Service
Former British prime minister Margaret Thacher is considering cancelling some of her foreign trips because she fears being seized abroad and indicted for war crimes. Baroness Thatcher has been making discreet inquiries to the British Home Office as to the likelihood of her being arrested or extradited abroad after the decision by British courts to extradite former Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet to Spain. Government officials claim her aides and colleagues have bee asking whether the ruling and developing international law on war crimes have implications for her as she chooses holiday destinations. And, according to one minister, Baroness Thatcher, Britain's longest -serving post-Second World War prime minister, has been discussing the need to rethink some of her overseas lecture tours. Ministers have been told the inquiries had "a more-than-serious tinge" to them. Baroness Thatcher, one of Gen. Pinochet's most formidable defenders, is said to be anxious that she might be indicted if she travelled to parts of South America in the light of her decision to recapture the Falklands Islands by force. She is said to have been concerned that some countries might try to indict her for her role in Northern Ireland policy, including detention without trial and claims of alleged shoot-to-kill operations of the security forces. The House of Lords ruled that Gen. Pinochet could not claim blanket immunity as a sovereign head of state on charges relating to his activities after 1988, when Britain first made torture abroad a crime. The change in the law made it possible for someone who is not British to be tried in Britain for torturing someone abroad. British magistrates have yet t decide whether Gen. Pinochet has a case to answer in the Spanish courts.
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