Category: In the Media

Ben Harding | Reuters

20 May 2009

Spanish judges who tried to extradite ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and investigate Bush administration officials over Guantanamo will likely be barred from doing so again after a parliamentary vote on Tuesday.

Under pressure from foreign governments, members of Spain’s congress almost unanimously passed a resolution which, if translated into law, would end the right of Spanish judges to investigate serious crimes like genocide anywhere in the world in cases where courts in the affected country do not act.

The resolution would restrict Spain, which had been praised by international campaigners, to only investigating cases in which the accused is in Spain or Spaniards are victims.

Spain’s Socialist government said earlier this year it would change the law after protests from Israel over the High Court’s decision in January to launch a war crimes probe into seven Israelis including former defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer for a 2002 attack in the Gaza Strip that killed 14 civilians and a Hamas leader.

U.S. President Barack Obama has also expressed his opposition to moves by Spanish courts to begin a probe into former Bush officials, including then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over torture allegations at Guantanamo Bay.

“There will be fewer places a victim can turn when he does not find justice in his own country,” said Reed Brody, spokesman for non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch. “There’s no doubt that the diplomatic heavyweights were throwing their weight around”.

The opposition-backed resolution covering a number of reforms to the judicial system was backed by 338 deputies to eight against.

The vote is the first step in formally changing a law which was used by Judge Baltazar Garzon to request Pinochet’s arrest and extradition from Britain in 1998.

Although the British government ultimately allowed him to return to Chile, his arrest spurred efforts in Chile to prosecute the atrocities committed while he was in power.

European diplomats have privately expressed concern that the law could oblige them to arrest members of friendly governments under EU-wide legal agreements.

It is unclear whether any change in the law would be retroactive and wipe the slate clean of cases currently under investigation.

Those include a request by a Madrid judge to interrogate eight senior Chinese officials including its defence minister as part of an investigation into the deaths of at least 203 Tibetans during disturbances in 2008.

The Jerusalem Post

20 May 2009

Spain’s congress on Tuesday reportedly passed a resolution to limit the jurisdiction of investigative judges.

The move follows pressure from foreign governments such as the US, China and Israel, which has strongly criticized Judge Fernando Andreu’s ongoing investigation into the 2002 assassination of Hamas terrorist Salah Shehadeh in Gaza, in which 14 others were also killed.

The resolution confines judges to cases with a clear Spanish connection and excludes them from probing investigations already under way in the country that allegedly committed the crime, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The move effectively reins in Spain’s investigative judges from dealing with crimes against humanity allegedly committed around the world. The investigating judges of Spain’s National Court have been employing the so-called principle of universal jurisdiction – which holds that for grave crimes such as genocide, terrorism or torture, suspects can be prosecuted in the country even if the alleged offenses were committed elsewhere – to 13 cases involving events that took place in other countries, from Rwanda to Iraq.

Under the new resolution, however, cases taken up by the judges would now have to involve a Spanish citizen or the accused would have to be on Spanish soil, the WSJ reported. The Spanish government will now introduce legislation, which the major parties in Congress have agreed to back, according to the report. It wasn’t clear whether the changes would apply to existing cases or only to future ones.

At the beginning of the month, Judge Andreu of Spain’s National Court decided to continue the investigation of Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon and five other former top security officials for their part in the Shehadeh assassination, despite Spanish prosecutors’ attempts to dissuade him from doing so on the grounds that Israel was still investigating the attack. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said the Shehadeh case “makes a mockery out of international law.”

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.