The Australian Federal Court on Thursday set the schedule for Adriana Rivas' appeal an .
Rivas is accused in her country of the aggravated kidnapping of Víctor Díaz, secretary-general of the Communist Party who disappeared in 1976 along with six other members of the movement.
She denies all the charges against her.
Sydney Magistrate Philip Stewart on October 29 ruled that Rivas "is eligible for surrender" to Chile which submitted an extradition request in 2014.
During that hearing, Magistrate Stewart said he was "satisfied with the information provided in the extradition request” while confirming that DINA - the Chilean secret police that Rivas was an agent of - would be considered a "criminal group" under NSW law.
Adriana Rivas during an interview with SBS Spanish reporter Florencia Melgar in 2013. Source: SBS Spanish
On Thursday, Rivas’ legal team question the principle of "dual criminality", which is necessary for the extradition to be carried out, and argued that Magistrate Stewart, "Ignored the historical factors and circumstances as they existed at the time of the alleged conduct."
Australian Federal Court Judge Wendy Abraham has given RIvas' legal team a strict deadline to present the details of their appeal.
Adriana Rivas during her time working for the Pinochet dictatorship. Source: SBS
During the hearing, Judge Abraham called on Rivas' lead lawyer, Frank Santisi, to stick to the timetable and insisted there "Can be no slippage on this timetable, as it happened in other applications.”
The next hearing is scheduled for April 6.
The battle for Rivas' extradition can happen quickly or last for several years, as she can take her appeal process all the way to the High Court of Australia.
A previous extradition process, the case of Dragan Vasiljković, a former Serbian paramilitary leader who was extradited to Croatia in 2015, took nine years after his arrest in Perth.
