Plea to Britain in Kissinger Witness Case

British authorities have been asked to decide whether a Spanish and a French judge representing the victims of General Pinochet's military regime in Chile can travel to London next week to interview Henry Kissinger as a witness in a terrorism and genocide case.

The unprecedented request to interview a former US secretary of state has come from crusading Spanish magistrate Judge Baltasar Garzon, who had General Pinochet arrested in London, and Judge Sophie-Helene Chateau from France. The Home Office confirmed that both requests had been received and were being considered "in the normal way."

If the requests are granted, Mr Kissinger will be summoned to give evidence on oath in a magistrates court where he can be questioned by the presiding district judge or the foreign judges.

The Spanish request, sent from the national court in Madrid on Thursday, said that Mr Kissinger would be quizzed about recently declassified CIA documents. It goes on to request the presence of "the Spanish judicial authority", who is Judge Garzon himself, and the private or public prosecutors involved in the genocide and terrorism case that is still being pursued against General Pinochet and others in Madrid.

Lawyers in Madrid said the request had been sent after British police, via Interpol, confirmed that Mr Kissinger was due to give a speech at the Institute of Directors' convention in the Royal Albert Hall next Wednesday. The prosecution lawyer most likely to accompany Judge Garzon would be the same man who directed the Spanish extradition case against General Pinochet on behalf of his victims, Joan Garces.

Mr Garces is a former aide to Salvador Allende, the socialist Chilean president killed by General Pinochet's troops during the 1973 coup.

"I represent 4,000 victims who disappeared or were killed," Mr Garces explained yesterday.

Although the case being pursued in the Spanish courts stretches back to the 1973 coup itself, the request to interview Mr Kissinger refers explicitly to the so-called Condor Plan - a secret agreement believed to have been conceived by General Pinochet designed to suppress leftwing opposition across southern Latin America.

The plan allegedly caused the arrest, torture, disappearance or deaths of thousands of people who were illegally deported back to their home countries of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil.

Mr Kissinger has avoided similar requests to give evidence as a witness to courts in Chile investigating the crimes allegedly committed by General Pinochet's regime. He has similarly avoided approaches from Judge Chateau, who is investigating the deaths of four French citizens in Chile.

Mr Kissinger's spokesman has explained that, while the former secretary of state is prepared to help the courts, he believes all questions should be answered by the state department.