Former Chilean leader General Augusto Pinochet may be preparing to return home, but he will leave behind a stalled case costing millions of pounds for the British taxpayer.

Costs covering the general's legal fees and 24-hour police protection are estimated to have spiralled to well in excess of £6m during the protracted wranglings.

And, following a decision by the Law Lords, most of the money will come from the public purse.

Public funds

Last summer, the House of Lords directed that General Pinochet's costs in several court hearings should be paid from public funds, and that the publicly-funded Crown Prosecution Service pay its own costs.

These included £1m-worth of proceedings abandoned when it was revealed that one Law Lord, Judge Hoffman, had links with human rights charity Amnesty International.

Some estimates price the overall cost of the failed Spanish extradition in the region of £10m, with critics branding the whole affair an extravagantly-funded public relations disaster.

The final cost of the proceedings, both to the British taxpayer and General Pinochet's supporters, is never likely to be known.



Soured relations

But costs in terms of revenue lost through soured relations with Chile are said to run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Last year Marconi Marine's Yarrow shipyard on the Clyde said the extradition attempt had lost it a £1bn Chilean contract to build two frigates.

In December 1998, the general's legal expenses were reported to be running at £12,000 a day, with one QC charging £500 an hour.

Home Office legal fees are expected to be roughly comparable. When Jack Straw took initial advice on whether extradition proceedings could go ahead, the lawyers' bill for this alone hit £100,000.

The Crown Prosecution Service told BBC News Online that, even before taking into account the final hearings, its costs approached £500,000.

A Metropolitan Police operation to keep the general under house arrest and constant guard at his rented property in Wentworth, Surrey, is reported to have cost about £50,000 per week.

Last year the Home Office granted Surrey Police an extra £200,000 to help fund security arrangements around the property.

And, though General Pinochet's supporters may be celebrating his imminent release, their campaign to secure his release has not come cheap.

Since moving into the four-bedroom house, they have been paying his £10,000 per month accommodation bill.

A £200,000 publicity campaign on behalf of the general has also been paid for out of a multi-million pound fund raised by supporters.

With such a massive outlay, the case is likely to attract criticism long after the debate over General Pinochet's human rights record has died down.

Similar criticisms were levelled at failed attempts to prosecute Kevin and Ian Maxwell, the sons of the late publisher Robert Maxwell, in 1996, which were estimated to have cost £30m.