Before October 11, 1998, Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet was a regular visitor to London, enjoying the privileges of a close relationship with former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Regarded as a reliable ally in the fight against international communism, the ties between the two leaders were deepened when Pinochet aided the United Kingdom during the Falklands War, a ten-week military skirmish between the UK and Argentina in 1982 that left nearly 1,000 people dead. Pinochet’s responsibility for the disappearance of more than 4,000 people, the torture of tens of thousands, and the forced exile of 1.2 million Chileans did little to trouble British authorities.
That changed on October 11, 1998, when Pinochet, who was then serving as a “senator-for-life,” was arrested while in a Harley Street clinic during what he believed was a routine visit to Britain. The arrest stunned the former dictator and sent shockwaves through diplomatic and legal circles. It is at this pivotal moment that Philippe Sands begins his forensic examination of the Pinochet case, tracing how a figure long protected by power was suddenly exposed to the reach of international law.
The book’s title, 38 Londres Street, is based on a nondescript house in central Santiago that functioned as a clandestine detention and torture center under Pinochet’s regime.
The book’s title, 38 Londres Street, is based on a nondescript house in central Santiago that functioned as a clandestine detention and torture center under Pinochet’s regime. Operated by Chile’s secret police, it was known among detainees as “Yucatán.” Many of those taken there were students and members of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Left Movement, MIR). Inside, dissidents were raped, tortured, and disappeared as part of Chile’s state sanctioned campaign of terror. Today, 38 Londres stands as a memorial site, grounding Sands’ legal inquiry in the physical remains of repression and impunity.
Sands, a legal scholar and writer, centers his investigation on two figures who shape both the narrative of the text and the long arc of Chilean impunity: General Augusto Pinochet and Walter Rauff, a former SS Officer and Nazi fugitive widely believed to have played a role in the Chilean regime’s apparatus of repression.
The question that drives the book is stark and unsettling: what connects a Latin American military dictator to one of the Third Reich’s most notorious criminals in hiding? The book unfolds along two principal lines of investigation. The first centers on the Pinochet case itself, examining the legal efforts to bring the former dictator to justice, the testimonies of his victims, and the determined attempts by political and diplomatic actors to shield him by any means necessary. The book also charts the trajectory of Walter Rauff, a sinister figure who rose to the upper ranks of the Nazi regime and is best known for his role in the development of the mobile gas chamber. Rauff’s wartime activities, including his passage through Tunisia and Italy, were linked to the deaths of thousands of Jews, crimes for which he was never held to account.
The question that drives the book is stark and unsettling: what connects a Latin American military dictator to one of the Third Reich’s most notorious criminals in hiding?
As Sands narrates the legal intricacies and political tensions of the Pinochet case, his account is enriched by interviews with key figures, including Jeanne Pateras, the official translator during the Pinochet trial; Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, who issued the arrest warrant; Carmen Soria, daughter of Carmelo Soria, the Spanish diplomat killed by the regime; and Erika Hennings, the wife of MIR leader and philosophy student Alfonso Chanfreau, who was taken to the 38 Londres detention centre and disappeared. From there, Sands turns his attention to Chile’s repressive apparatus through the case of Walter Rauff, whom Pinochet claimed never to have met, despite evidence that the two men encountered one another in Ecuador in the late 1960s.
Sands revisits the failed attempt to extradite Rauff from Chile directing his investigation toward a pivotal figure linking both narratives: lawyer Miguel Schweitzer Spiesky, who in 1963 successfully argued before Chilean courts that the statute of limitations had expired and that Rauff therefore could not be extradited. Schweitzer Spiesky later served as Chile’s Minister of Justice, a position that afforded Rauff further protection. The web of connections deepens with his son, Miguel Schweitzer Walter, who would later defend General Pinochet in London. Schweitzer Walter also served as Chilean ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1980 to 1983 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1983 onwards. He was instrumental in facilitating assistance to the British during the Falklands War and became a vocal defender of the Pinochet regime against accusations of human rights abuses, playing a central role in efforts to block Pinochet’s extradition in 1998.
The author’s connection to the Pinochet case and to investigations into Nazi fugitives in Latin America is both personal and professional.
Sands’ relentless pursuit of the truth surrounding Walter Rauff’s role in Chile’s machinery of repression takes the reader from the Chilean capital, Santiago, where he interviews former detainees from 38 Londres, to the far reaches of the country, including the infamous Isla Dawson concentration camp, where leading figures from the overthrown Salvador Allende administration (1970-73) were imprisoned. Among those held at Dawson were Orlando Letelier, later assassinated in Washington alongside Ronni Moffitt; Luis Corvalán, former secretary general of the Communist Party; Clodomiro Almeyda, former Minister of Foreign Affairs; Sergio Bitar, Minister of Mining; Fernando Flores, Minister of Finance; and José Tohá, who died on the island. As one lead appears to reach a dead end, another emerges, drawing Sands ever closer to the truth and exposing the connective tissue between both cases and the devastation wrought by the two men at their center.
The author’s connection to the Pinochet case and to investigations into Nazi fugitives in Latin America is both personal and professional. His expertise in international law led to his involvement in the Pinochet proceedings in 1998 as a representative of Human Rights Watch. Earlier, he investigated SS officer Otto Wächter and the Nazi Rat Line, a clandestine network of clerics and political figures that enabled Nazis to flee Europe and find refuge in Latin America. That investigation later evolved into a BBC podcast and an acclaimed book.
This latest offering by Sands arrives at a pivotal moment in both Chilean and global politics. In March 2026, José Antonio Kast is set to assume the presidency of Chile. Kast is the son of Michael Kast, a German immigrant who arrived in Chile in 1950 and who was a member of the Nazi Party. Michael Kast has also been identified by workers in Paine as having been involved in grave human rights abuses during the Pinochet regime. José Antonio Kast has indicated his intention to release convicted human rights abusers from the Pinochet era who are currently held in a special detention facility in southern Chile, a move that has deeply alarmed victims and their families.
Expertly written yet highly accessible, this book not only demonstrates how impunity is enabled, protected, and consolidated, it also issues a stark warning. Unchecked impunity thrives when international law is disregarded and when those with the power to enforce it, choose inaction.
Carole Concha Bell is a PhD Candidate at King’s College London. She is also a founding member of Chile Solidarity Network UK.