'38 Londres Street' by Philippe Sands: A Gripping Legal Thriller on Pinochet and Nazi Crimes

The Hindu

07-05-2025

Published : May 07, 2025 18:10 IST - 4 MINS READ
One Friday in October 1998, a little after 3 pm, an extraordinary fax arrived at Scotland Yard. It was from a judge in Spain. 'I order,' it read, 'the pre-trial detention of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte for the crimes of genocide and terrorism, issuing international search and capture orders to permit his extradition. The urgent issuance of an international arrest warrant for execution by the British judicial authorities.' This was the first ever warrant issued for a former head of state for international crimes.
Pinochet ran a military dictatorship in Chile from 1973 to 1990, a brutal regime where at least 40,000 people were illegally detained or tortured and at least 3,000 killed or disappeared. When the 82-year-old arrived in London for a back operation, he had been eight years out of power but confident that his diplomatic immunity protected him. Until he was abruptly awakened in his bed by four officers (and a Spanish interpreter) who arrived to arrest him.
38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia
By Philippe Sands Weidenfeld & Nicolson Pages:432 Price:Rs.899
The Spanish judge's two-line fax set in motion a years-long judicial saga straddling questions of international law, human rights violations, and diplomatic niceties. The big legal question that loomed was this: can a former head of state be tried for crimes in another country or does he enjoy immunity? But the broader issues raised went beyond the technicality: they encompassed ideas of justice and reparations, memory, and morality. The barrister, academic and international law expert Philippe Sands dives into this saga with verve and brio in 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia.
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This semi-personal, semi-journalistic work of non-fiction is partly about the Pinochet case and partly interwoven with a different but related storyline: an investigation into Walther Rauff, a former Nazi with a potential link to the Pinochet-era atrocities. The title, 38 Londres Street, refers to the secret detention centre in Santiago where many of these atrocities unfolded.
Third in a spiritual trilogy
Sands has taken big swings in his previous books; this is the third in a spiritual trilogy of sorts about Nazi war crimes. The excellent East West Street (2016) was a family memoir and legal history of the concepts of 'crimes against humanity' and 'genocide' in the aftermath of the Second World War. Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive (2020) traced the life and death of a high-ranking Nazi officer, and his impact on his son.
38 Londres Street is a similarly marbled account blending the personal and professional, memoir and reportage. In the Pinochet episode, Sands was a player. He was first approached to represent the dictator, a brief he turned down ('if you do it, I will divorce you,' his wife threatened), and later represented Human Rights Watch in the case against Pinochet. 'It offered a front-row seat in one of the most important international criminal cases since Nuremberg,' he writes in the introduction. And what a legal rollercoaster it turned out to be.
No doubt Sands' direct involvement and close dealings with many of the principals gave him an astonishing level of access and the willingness of all the participants to speak to him freely. James Cameron, a lawyer on Pinochet's team was, for instance, a friend ('best friends on opposite sides'), a British magistrate who had to sign the provisional arrest warrant turned out to be a neighbour, while a Spanish victim at the heart of the extradition case was distantly related.
There is a lot to admire in how Sands carefully unpacks the legal nitty-gritties, bringing an edge-of-the-seat feel to dry points of international law. In lesser hands we would have been left confused, even bored.
Rauff's story
Alternating with this storyline is Sands' investigation into Rauff. Sands first encountered the former Nazi in a personal archive he accessed while working on Ratline. The man had been responsible for honing the system of using gas vans to more efficiently murder Jews, probably even members of Sands' own family.
Pulling obsessively at that thread, Sands traces Rauff's dubious afterlife in Chile. Pinochet and Rauff were friends, but were they also, as rumour had it, murderous collaborators? Rauff first had a day job selling typewriters and a side gig working for the West German intelligence services at the height of the Cold War. Like Pinochet, he too was arrested on foreign soil. He was sought to be extradited and tried for his role in the Nazi death camps, but was not. Later a manager at a king crab packing outfit, what was his role in Pinochet's regime?
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This is the question Sands chases across Chile, tracing witnesses, victims and others with ties to Rauff. Two men guilty of dastardly crimes, both test cases for international law, both embodiments of impunity. We broadly know how both journeys ended, legally speaking, but that does not dim the ardour of Sands' inquiry or the questions he raises in either case.
38 Londres Street works as both courtroom drama and historical mystery; Sands has produced another compelling legal thriller with heart and soul.
Bhavya Dore is a freelance journalist who writes for various Indian and international publications.