London - (Litigious Mess): General Augusto Pinochet's former London extradition lawyer Michael Caplan QC is said to be 'shocked and dismayed' after his ex-client's relatives and business associates were rounded up in an anti-corruption sting in Santiago today.
Caplan famously held off a barrage of Spanish prosecutors' writs demanding that the Chilean leader stand a genocide trial in Madrid in 1998.
Today's news from Santiago has reported that Pinochet's wife and five children were arrested on corruption charges along with a total of 23 of the ex-general's relatives and former associates.
Santiago police department CEO Arturo Herrera said the list of those arrested included Pinochet's long-serving former secretary Monica Ananias and one of his lawyers, Ambrosio Rodriguez, whose testimony before UK Law Lords was crucial to the suppression of the Spanish extradition request that Caplan blocked so successfully.
Indictment evidence laid today before Santiago Judge Carlos Cerda alleges that all the indicted were involved in corruption during the 1973-90 dictatorship.
Also alleged are links related to an official Interpol inquiry instigated before Pinochet's death into multimillion-dollar secret foreign bank accounts held by the former leader at the Riggs Bank.
"Pinochet died a lucky man," a Santiago source said today referring to the 300 or so criminal charges he was facing at the time of his death last December including embezzlement, human rights abuses tax evasion and "attempting to bribe a British attorney".
Caplan, 55, has famously taken on Kate and Gerry McCann in their future Portuguese extradition fight.
