Juan Guzman Tapia retired from the magistracy in May 2005. During his career, he prepared hundreds of cases against ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet filed by families of disappeared persons in Chile. On a visit to Paris to promote his autobiography "Aboard the World," he spoke to IJT. What was the worst pressure you were ever placed under when preparing the Pinochet cases?
When I indicted Pinochet for the first time on 1 December 2000. Horacio Rojas, the cabinet chief working for the justice minister Antonio Gomez was the first person to call me to say with astounding audacity: "Mr Guzman, you must drop the charges, you know very well that they go against the interests of the state." I replied: "Tell the person who sent you that his request is worthy of an authoritarian government." But I cannot tell you who was really behind the call.

What about political and judicial pressure?
Judicial pressure was extremely strong. I recorded the testimony of an army officer, for example, who gave me a lot of information on an enormous amount of cases. I kept this information on file for many months. Finally, when the Supreme Court asked me for documents for the prosecution of General Arellano Stark [the head of the Caravan of Death, a group of 12 soldiers who executed 75 people in 1974 throughout Chile], the testimony was leaked to the Chilean press. I complained to the Supreme Court about how such serious documents could have been made public. It issued me with a reprimand, saying that my prosecution case was flimsy, and that the leak was due to my own disorder. I was very severely punished for this, and it affected my career.

In June, the Santiago appeals court dismissed the Condor file and lifted Pinochet's immunity in the Riggs case. Do you think Pinochet will stand trial in Chile one day?
No, I don't. I gathered all the evidence that I could, and issued charges when I had to. I asked for the removal of immunity four times. But when the rulings on prosecution came before the appeals court or the Supreme Court, they concluded that Pinochet was not mentally apt to stand trial. The Supreme Court decided this in 2002 by four votes to one and the Court of Appeal followed in June 2005, considering that they had made the final decision on Pinochet's state of mental acuity and that the case was closed.

How do you explain this?
Objectively, what I know is that the judiciary is still divided between those who see themselves as independent and democrats, and those who still believe that Pinochet was Chile's saviour. I'd say that the balance is about 50-50 among the thirty members of the Santiago Court of Appeal. In 1999-2000, a constitutional reform was implemented that had a big effect on the judiciary. Before this, candidates for the Supreme Court were put on a list of five and the president would choose one of them. After the reform, the president still chooses, but it is the senate that decides. Judges in Chile have become much more politicised since then. You have to move in political circles to get elected, especially at the Court of Appeal, which is the "antechamber" of the Supreme Court and has become completely politicised.

An attempt is underway to prosecute Pinochet in France, and he could be tried in absentia in 2006 for the disappearance of several French nationals in Chile in the 1970s. What do you anticipate will happen?
Even if he is charged here and France requests Pinochet's extradition, I don't think Chile would ever agree to it. Firstly, because I'm not aware of any extradition treaty between France and Chile. Secondly, because of the norm in private international law called the "Codigo Bustamente", which is a treaty ratified by Chile [and twenty other South American countries, plus the USA] that allows one country to refuse to hand over any of its citizens for trial abroad. So Pinochet would be tried in his absence, which would remain largely symbolic. If it's about punishing someone, I don't see how such a trial could result in punishment. Perhaps people could bring civil cases to attempt to seize his assets for possible compensation. But criminally, no. Symbolically, it is very important to have a verdict in absentia. This would strengthen the work of Chilean justice to win a conviction on Pinochet. But not just Chilean justice - also the work of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon [from the Spanish nation