Fascist dictator Generalissimo Franco

This is the last of three posts about the impending (Jan 17, 2012) trial of Balthasar Garzon, the Spanish judge who ordered the arrest and extradition (from London) of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Recent Wikileaks cables reveal the pressure the US State Department has placed on Spanish authorities to silence Garzon. You can support him by joining the Support Balthasar Garzon Facebook page at http://es-es.facebook.com/impunitynothanks

Judge Balthasar Garzon himself faces three charges. On reviewing the charges, the Spanish Supreme Court has ruled he must face trial on all of them. The first is a corruption charge, alleging that he dismissed a tax evasion case against the director of Banco Santander, in return for a 302,000 euro donation to fund human rights classes Garzon taught at the Juan Carlos I Center at the University of New York in 2005-2006. Although no funds went to Garzon personally, the prosecution has a letter he signed requesting the donation from the bank’s chairman Emilio Botin. The evidence suggests the judge may be guilty of a conflict of interest. Although he took the case against Santander more than a year after Biotin made the donation, strictly speaking he should have stepped aside to allow another judge to oversee the investigation. In the US, judicial conflict of interest charges occasionally result in censure, but are more likely to be ignored (see http://www.defundanddisobey.com/freedom/judicial-corruption-in-california, http://webpages.charter.net/lah1321/execsummary.pdf , and http://www.corruptusjudicialsystem.org/#Submit%20YOUR%20Cases%20Of%20Corruption%20&%20Misconduct%20By%20Judges).

The second charge relates to violating attorney client privilege by ordering “illegal” phone taps between defendants (top politicians of the opposition party) and their lawyers. Garzon insists the taps were necessary because the attorneys were serving as financial messengers in a criminal scheme.

Investigating Crimes Against Humanity: Illegal Under Spanish Law

The third and most serious charge is that Garzon exceeded his authority in investigating crimes against humanity by the brutal Franco regime, in violation of Spain’s 1977 Amnesty Law. If found guilty, Garzon could be disqualified from the bench for 20 years. His supporters find it ironic that he has stood up to multiple death threats from Colombian and Spanish drug dealers, Basque and Islamic terrorists and organized crime figures – only to be blind-sided by archaic legislation considered illegal under international law.

The charge stems from an order Garzon issued, at the request of families, to exhume the remains of victims assassinated and/or disappeared by the Franco regime. Garzon and the more than two hundred international organizations that condemn the prosecution against him, contend that international law supersedes a national amnesty law in dealing with crimes against humanity. In 2008 the UN Committee on Human Rights advised Spain to repeal the 1977 Amnesty Law. Likewise the European Tribunal of Human Rights has warned that a guilty verdict on this charge will result in Spain’s suspension.

Although Garzon was suspended from his official duties in May 2010, the Spanish authorities allowed him to work as a consultant to the International Criminal Court in La Hague for six months been May and November 2010. In October 2010, an Argentine judge successfully petitioned Spain to be allowed to investigate Franco regime crimes that Garzon was barred from pursuing (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/26/argentina-spain-general-franco-judge).