In this intimate legal and historical detective story, the world-renowned lawyer and acclaimed author of East West Street traces the footsteps of two of the twentieth centurys most merciless criminalsaccused of genocide and crimes against humanitytesting the limits of immunity and impunity after Nuremberg
On the evening of October 16, 1998, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested at a medical clinic in London. After a brutal, seventeen-year reign marked by assassinations, disappearances, and torturefrequently tied to the infamous detention center at the heart of Santiago, Londres 38Pinochet was being indicted for international crimes and extradition to Spain, opening the door to criminal charges that would follow him to the grave, in 2006.
Three decades earlier, on the evening of December 3, 1962, SS-Commander Walter Rauff was arrested in his home in Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. As the overseer of the development and use of gas vans in World War II, he was indicted for the mass murder of tens of thousands of Jews and extradition to West Germany.
Would these uncommon criminals be held accountable? Were their stories connected? The Nuremberg Trialswhere Rauffs crimes had first been read into the record, in 1945opened the door to universal jurisdiction, and Pinochet's case would be the first effort to ensnare a former head of state.
In this unique blend of memoir, courtroom drama, and travelogue, Philippe Sands gives us a front row seat to the Pinochet trialwhere he acted as a barrister for Human Rights Watchand teases out the dictators unexpected connection to a leading Nazi who ended up managing a king crab cannery in Patagonia. A decade-long journey exposes the chilling truth behind the lives of two men and their intertwined destinies on 38 Londres Street.
