A Spanish judge who asked Britain to hand over the former Chilean military leader, Augusto Pinochet, for trial on charges of human rights abuses, has issued a new court order, adding more than thirty new cases of alleged torture to his original extradition request.

The high court judge, Baltasar Garzon, said the charges related to offences committed after September 1988, when the international convention against torture was incorporated into English law.

The announcement comes just days after Britain's highest court, the House of Lords, significantly reduced the number of charges against General Pinochet because they concerned offences committed before September 1988. The Law Lords referred the case back to the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw, to make the final decision on the Spanish extradition request.