Pinochet suffers from brain damage 8212; Report

MADRID, FEBRUARY 16: Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has suffered brain damage and would have difficulty understanding and answer...

MADRID, FEBRUARY 16: Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has suffered brain damage and would have difficulty understanding and answering questions at a trial, Spain8217;s ABC newspaper said on Thursday, citing a confidential British medical report.

quot;There is clinical evidence of extensive brain damage,quot; the Right-wing daily quoted the report as saying, adding there was damage to the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain with resulting loss of memory.

quot;Pinochet8217;s main medical problems at present are a peripheral diabetic neuropathology and a recent progressive cerebral-vascular injury,quot; the report said.

The newspaper said the report had divided Pinochet8217;s health problems into mental and physical matters. It said the report had found Pinochet was quot;physically fitquot; to face trial, but prolonged stress was likely to cause a deterioration in his condition.

Most of the brain damage occurred between September and October 1999 and it was unlikely now that Pinochet would recover, ABC quoted the report as saying.

quot;His memory of distant facts is deficient. He would have difficulty making himself heard and understood in his answers to questions,quot; it said.

The report, signed by three British doctors on January 6, was sent to Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon in strict confidentiality on Tuesday on the orders of the British high court. Garzon is the judge whose extradition request prompted Pinochet8217;s arrest in London in October 1998.

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Spain, Belgium, France and Switzerland have all sought Pinochet8217;s extradition on charges of human rights abuses and were all to receive copies of the medical report after the British court ruling.

Pinochet had appeared on the verge of returning to Chile after British Home Secretary Interior Minister Jack Straw said he was inclined to free him on the basis of the medical report. Pinochet must now await a new round of legal wrangling.