ARGENTINA’s ruling couple have made prosecuting the political violence of the past their signature issue. Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, his wife and successor, regularly call for “memory” and “justice” for the victims of the country’s 1976-83 military dictatorship. During their time in office, hundreds of ex-soldiers accused of kidnapping, torture and murder have been taken into custody.

ARGENTINA's ruling couple have made prosecuting the political violence of the past their signature issue. Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, his wife and successor, regularly call for “memory” and “justice” for the victims of the country's 1976-83 military dictatorship. During their time in office, hundreds of ex-soldiers accused of kidnapping, torture and murder have been taken into custody.

No such justice has been extended to the (fewer) victims of Argentina's leftist guerrillas—in fact, many former supporters of such groups have served in the Kirchners' cabinet. But the first couple has deflected charges of a double standard by noting that the 2005 Supreme Court decision allowing “dirty war” cases to be reopened applied exclusively to crimes against humanity, which under Argentine law can only be committed by representatives of the state. On September 30th, however, Ms Fernández sabotaged her claim to support an apolitical reckoning with the past, when her underlings recommended that she grant asylum to a Chilean guerrilla leader.

In June 2004 Chile issued an international arrest warrant for Galvarino Apablaza, who was a leader of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), an urban guerrilla group set up by the country's Communist Party to fight the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. But the crimes Mr Apablaza is accused of refer to events that took place after Chile had returned to democracy: planning the murder of Jaime Guzmán Errázuriz, a conservative senator and Pinochet ideologue, and the kidnapping of Cristián Edwards, the son of a newspaper owner, in 1991. Five months after the warrant was filed, Argentine authorities detained Mr Apablaza in a Buenos Aires suburb, where he had been living under a pseudonym with his wife, Paula Chaín. Chile requested his extradition, and Mr Apablaza applied for asylum. After seven months, a federal judge denied the extradition request and he was released. But the Chilean government appealed to Argentina's Supreme Court, which said it would not rule until the asylum question had been settled. Mr Apablaza remained free in the meantime.

Last month, in a televised interview, another former FPMR leader said that Mr Apablaza was a ringleader in Mr Guzmán's murder. The ensuing pressure from Chile led Argentina's Supreme Court to reverse its decision. Since Mr Apablaza's alleged crimes were not political and occurred after Chile's dictatorship had ended, the court said on September 14th that it would approve the extradition unless Ms Fernández granted him asylum.

This put the president in a bind. Among her staunchest supporters are the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a group that protested the kidnappings of their children during the dictatorship but later became an extreme leftist organisation. Its leader, Hebe de Bonafini, claims Mr Apablaza cannot get a fair trial in Chile because a harsh Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law remains on the books. Ms Fernández has her own ties to Mr Apablaza: Ms Chaín works in her press office.

But denying the request looks like a bigger risk. It would severely strain relations with Chile, and weaken Argentina's moral authority to request extraditions itself—like those of eight Iranians accused of masterminding the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. It would also support the suspicion that the Kirchners' supposed commitment to justice was merely an excuse to settle old scores.

Ms Fernández quickly made up her mind. On September 30th, Argentina's National Commission for Refugees recommended that Mr Apablaza be granted asylum. One reason, it said, was that since Mr Apablaza was “a political militant” and “a fighter against the dictatorship” he was “not a common citizen”—an implicit argument that former guerrillas should be above the law forever. Ms Fernández said she would follow the guidance of the commission's theoretically independent technocrats. But its voting members are all representatives of ministries controlled by the executive branch.

Chile is predictably outraged. Its president, Sebastián Piñera, who happened to be in Buenos Aires when the recommendation was announced, called it a “step backwards for justice and human rights in my country.” The foreign ministry has summoned Argentina's ambassador in Santiago to explain the decision. But former guerrillas across Latin America are surely breathing easier now that it seems they can take shelter in a country whose “inalienable principles”, in Mr Kirchner's words, include “the permanent fight against impunity”.