The judicial committee of the House of Lords is considering an appeal by prosecutors against a ruling in Pinochet's favour last Wednesday by the high court.

Its outcome will determine whether 82-year-old Pinochet can be extradited to Spain, where an examining magistrate on Tuesday asked for his extradition to answer charges of crime against humanity.

The hearing by five law Lords, peers for life, is expected to last for two days, and a ruling could be issued as early as tomorrow afternoon.

Spanish judges want him extradited and tried for the deaths of Spaniards during Pinochet's iron-fisted rule from 1973 to 1990, when thousands were tortured and killed for their political views.

In last Wednesday's ruling, Britain's high court concluded that as a head ofstate at the time Pinochet was entitled to sovereign immunity under English law.

The Crown Prosecution Service will argue that this does not apply to the crimes of genocide, torture and terrorism alleged in the initial Spanish request that led to Pinochet's October 16 arrest.

Emotional, judicial and diplomatic pressure for the appeal to be allowed or dismissed is immense, with other European countries joining in with similar demands for extradition, victims of Pinochet's rule pleading for him to face trial, and the Chilean government and right-wingers in Santiago demanding that he be allowed to return home.

Legal proceedings are under way in at least eight European countries aimed at bringing Pinochet to justice for murders committed while he was in office.Chilean exile groups in three other countries are also preparing legal action.

The latest move came on Tuesday when France requested that Britain hold Pinochet pending an official request for his extradition to France, judicial sources said inParis. The sources said France would make the extradition application through diplomatic channels in the next few days, after a magistrate issued an international arrest warrant on Sunday.

Other legal moves have come from Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Luxembourg and Sweden.

Three British-based human rights groups have called on the British authorities to apply a law passed in 1988 under which a person can be tried for crimes of torture committed in foreign countries as well as in Britain.

Victims of torture under Pinochet's rule gave emotional accounts of their experiences to the human rights committee of Britain's parliament on Tuesday, demanding that the ailing 82-year-old face justice.

``Pinochet has never had that humanitarian attitude he is now asking for,'' said Isabel Allende, daughter of Salvador Allende, the President who died in the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power.

Sola Sierra, 62, whose husband is among 1,198 people still missing, said those who escaped, andevidence gathered from the bodies of the dead, showed they suffered ``the cruellest tortures, every bone broken, rapes, sometimes by animals, even on pregnant women.''

``That's why we cannot accept that they give Pinochet any sort of immunity,'' she said. ``For him, his victims weren't human beings.''

In Chile meanwhile, where the government has challenged Spain's right to try the former ruler, the country remains split between his supporters and opponents. The Chilean senate on Tuesday approved by 24-23 a motion condemning Britain and Spain for their role in detaining him, with the only member not casting a vote being Pinochet himself.

Earlier a shouting match between relatives of those who disappeared in the public gallery and friends of the ex-dictator on the Senate floor disrupted a special session to consider stripping him of his lifetime seat.