Spanish court clears way for judge to be charged with abuse of power in civil war probe

Spanish super judge closer to being charged

MADRID — Spain’s Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for the judge known for indicting Osama bin Laden and Augusto Pinochet to be charged with abuse of power in a probe of Spanish civil war atrocities.

The decision by a five-judge panel to continue the case is a stinging setback for Judge Baltasar Garzon, a deeply polarizing figure who is accused of knowingly overstepping the bounds of his job in 2008 by investigating the atrocities.

Garzon, 54, denied any wrongdoing, telling journalists in Seville that he would “continue to defend my absolute innocence.”

The ultimate decision on whether to charge and put Garzon on trial is up to an investigating magistrate at the Supreme Court. That judge, Luciano Varela, said in a ruling in February that Garzon consciously ignored an amnesty decreed by Parliament in 1977 for civil war-era crimes.

Garzon, 54, appealed that ruling, denying any wrongdoing. Thursday’s decision rejecting his appeal allows the case to proceed and puts it back in the hands of Varela, whose call has the potential to end Garzon’s career.

Garzon, who has prosecuted everything from Islamic extremists to Basque separatists to Argentine “dirty war” suspects, is arguably one of Spain’s most divisive figures and a man with a lot of political enemies.

He is a tireless hero to leftists and international human rights groups like Amnesty International, but a headline-loving egotist with a grudge against the right in the eyes of Spanish conservatives.

Over the past decade, he gained fame worldwide as the most prominent symbol of Spain’s doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which holds that heinous crimes like torture or terrorism can be tried in the country even if they had no link to Spain.

He used it in 1998 to go after Pinochet, having the former Chilean dictator arrested during a visit to London — although Britain ultimately refused to extradite him to Madrid. Garzon indicted bin Laden in 2003 over the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the U.S.

Garzon’s aborted probe centered on the killings of tens of thousands of civilians by supporters of Gen. Francisco Franco during the 1936-39 civil war and in the early years of his right-wing dictatorship.

It was the first official investigation into a still-divisive period of history, which had been taboo for many Spaniards. Garzon argued that Franco and his cohorts engaged in a crime against humanity, citing a systematic campaign by Franco to eliminate opponents, and said this had no statute of limitations.

His probe was seen as seeking a symbolic indictment of the regime.

He declared himself to have jurisdiction and began his probe in the summer of 2008, ordering the Catholic church and government ministries to provide him with information on missing people. But he reluctantly bowed out a few months later in a dispute over jurisdiction, transferring the case to provincial courts.

Months later an obscure far-right group called Manos Limpias, or Clean Hands, filed a complaint against Garzon for having launched the probe in the first place and the Supreme Court agreed to study it.

At least one more procedural step remains before Varela decides on bringing charges. Varela has to rule on accepting or rejecting a request from Garzon that testimony be heard in his defense from international lawyers specializing in human rights law. Garzon can appeal then, too.

If Garzon is convicted of knowingly acting without jurisdiction, he can be suspended from the bench for 10 to 20 years. His lawyer, Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda, says that would effectively end the judge’s career.

“He is very sad, very downcast,” Martinez-Fresneda said of the judge after the court’s ruling Thursday.

Garzon is being investigated in two other cases as well: One involving money that Banco Santander donated to finance seminars Garzon organized while on sabbatical in New York City a few years ago, and over jailhouse wiretaps he ordered in a corruption probe that has tainted Spain’s conservative opposition party.

If Garzon is charged in the civil war case he will be automatically suspended from his post at the National Court.