Former Chilean dictator General Pinochet has appointed Jonathan
Aitken’s former PR adviser, Patrick Robertson to help to manage media
coverage of his detention in London.
Robertson was brought in on 27 October in an attempt to persuade the UK
press that Pinochet’s arrest is politically motivated.
Pinochet, on his sickbed at the London Clinic, is under arrest awaiting
extradition to Spain, which wants to try him for alleged crimes against
Spanish citizens. As PR Week went to press the High Court was due to
rule on whether the Spanish request for extradition was lawful. The Lord
Chief Justice could decide that Pinochet is free to fly home to
Chile.
Robertson said: ’I’m trying to communicate issues to the media and show,
whatever the rights and wrongs in Chile, the issue is the hypocrisy and
humbug of the Government. It pretends to the world that Pinochet is a
brutal dictator and then says that it is not an issue they can get
involved in.’
Robertson runs his own PR consultancy called Robertson and Associates
and in addition to advising Jonathan Aitken during his time at the
treasury was a personal PR adviser to Sir James Goldsmith when his
Referendum Party fought the last election.
Before setting up his own consultancy, Robertson was a founder of
Taskforce Communications which was started with Tory MP Gerald Howarth
and Lord Parkinson in 1992.
