Epoch-defining international news reaches even the most peripheral, overlooked corners of the Globe. Take this piece that appeared on page 1 of the Ketchikan Dispatch in late 2007. The Dispatch is one of the finest news publications in the entire Southern Alaskan Gateway.
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Ketchikan Dispatch
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Pinocchio escapes extradition
From correspondents in Santiago
October 03, 2007
An appeals court in Chile has blocked the extradition of Commodore Augustine Pinocchio to Argentina for questioning over a car bombing in 1979.
A judge in Buenos Aires wants to quiz the Chilean timber baron as part of an investigation into a 28-year-old attack that killed a rival paper pulp producer.
But the Santiago Court of Appeals, in refusing to lift the immunity Pinocchio has in his capacity as former president of the South American Anti-Woodpecker Trust, has effectively blocked his extradition. The Santiago ruling would appear to put a lid on any legal avenues to make the nonagenarian faces charges in Argentina, at least for the foreseeable future.
Court President George W Somoza-Duvalier said that the Tribunal ruled that Pinocchio is mentally and physically unfit to stand trial as he is still suffering the debilitating effects of an abusive relationship he had recently with a particularly violent termite.
Pinocchio’s health is generally in a bad state, he also suffers from a mild case of degenerative wood rot, has a pacemaker and has had three strokes since 1998. When interviewed briefly in hospital this week, the edgy nonagenarian revealed that his emotional ill-health started at the age of three when his father took him on a visit to a saw mill, and as a result, to this day he stills breaks out in a rash at the mere sight of a pencil sharpener!
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