Time Magazine: Will a Spanish Judge Bring Bush-Era Figures to Justice?

[laststeamtrain]

Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009
Will a Spanish Judge Bring Bush-Era Figures to Justice?
By Lisa Abend / Madrid

Chile's Pinochet. Argentina's Scilingo. Guatemala's Rios Montt. To the roster of international figures whom Spanish investigative judge Baltasar Garzón has sought to bring to justice, the name of Gonzales may soon be added. As in: Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. attorney general and one of the legal minds behind the Bush administration's justification for the use of torture at Guantánamo.

On March 17, a group of lawyers representing the Association for the Dignity of Prisoners, a Spanish human rights group, filed a complaint in Spain's National Court against Gonzales and five other former officials, including Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and the Justice Department's John Yoo, for violating international law by creating a legal framework that permitted the torture of suspect terrorists. On March 29, the complaint became public after Garzón, who had been assigned the case, sent it to the prosecutor's office for review, a step seen by many familiar with the court as a sign that the judge will soon agree to investigate the case. "It's still a bit early," says Almudena Bernabeu, international attorney with the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, which has brought claims on behalf of victims of human rights abuse in Guatemala and El Salvador before the National Court. "But it's a great step." (See pictures of Pakistan's lawyers celebrating victory.)

A step on a path that Garzón and other judges in the same court have been down many times before. Spain's National Court is perhaps the world's leading practitioner of universal jurisdiction, a legal principle that holds that in crimes of exceptional gravity, the right to render judgment is not limited to the country where the crime was committed. It's a principle that helped Garzón famously order the arrest and extradition of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and seven years later convict Argentine military officer Adolfo Scilingo for crimes against humanity. The National Court has also heard cases against high-ranking Chinese officials on behalf of Tibet and the Falun Gong, and against Israel for its attacks in Gaza. (See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza.)

For Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who filed this latest complaint, the legal cover that Gonzales, Yoo, and other possible defendants provided for waterboarding and other abuses at Guantánamo, warrants the international investigation. "Bush made a political decision, based on the advice he was getting from his judicial advisors," says Boye. "And what his advisers were telling him to do is a very serious crime."

No doubt there's a bit of strategy in aiming at Yoo and Feith (the complaint also brings charges against William Haynes, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department and David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff). "Politically, going after lower-level officials is a lot more palatable than going against a former President and Vice President," says international law professor Robert Goldman, director of the War Crimes Research Office at American University. "Plus there's a lot more direct evidence when it comes to Yoo, Bybee and Addington. Their fingerprints are all over these policies." (Reached by e-mail, Bybee, now a judge on the 9th circuit federal court of appeals, said he had no comment.)

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But attorney Boye believes the legal complaint will have far more than symbolic effect. Asked whether he expected to see Gonzales or others in a Spanish court or an American one, he replied, "I expect to see them in court, full stop. You know why? Because I believe in the American system of justice."

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http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1888572,00.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. "...Because I believe in the American system of justice."

:rofl:

[aquart]

2. Make it so.