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MADRID, – A Spanish court has agreed to consider opening a criminal case
against six former Bush administration officials, including former
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, over allegations they gave legal cover
for torture at Guantanamo Bay, a lawyer in the case said Saturday.
Human rights lawyers brought the case before leading anti-terror judge
Baltasar Garzon, who agreed to send it on to prosecutors to decide whether it
had merit, Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who brought the charges, told The
Associated Press.
The ex-Bush officials are Gonzales; former undersecretary of defense for
policy Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff
David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and
Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.
"The charges as related to me make no sense," Feith said Saturday. "They
criticize me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated."
Yoo declined to comment. A message left at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco where Bybee is now a judge was not immediately
returned. A message left at Chevron Corp. in San Ramon, Calif., where Haynes
reportedly works as an attorney was not immediately returned.
Spanish law allows courts to reach beyond national borders in cases of
torture or war crimes under a doctrine of universal justice, though the
government has recently said it hopes to limit the scope of the legal process.
Garzon became famous for bringing charges against former Chilean dictator
Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and he and other Spanish judges have agreed to
investigate alleged abuses everywhere from Tibet to Argentina's
"dirty war," El Salvador and Rwanda.
Still, the country's record in prosecuting such cases has been spotty at
best, with only one suspect extradited to Spain so far.
When a similar case was brought against Israeli officials earlier this year,
Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos assured his Israeli counterpart that the
process would be quashed.
Even if indictments are eventually handed down against the U.S. officials, it
is far from clear whether arrests would ever take place. The officials would
have to travel outside the United States and to a country willing to take them
into custody before possible extradition to Spain.
The officials are charged with providing a legal cover for interrogation
methods like waterboarding against terrorism suspects at Guantanamo,
which the Spanish human rights lawyers say amounted to torture.
Yoo, for instance, wrote a series of secret memos that claimed the president
had the legal authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions.
President George W. Bush always denied the U.S. tortured anyone. The U.S. has
acknowledged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described
plotter of Sept. 11, and a few other prisoners were waterboarded at secret CIA
prisons before being taken to Guantanamo, but the Bush administration insisted
that all interrogations were lawful.
Boye said he expected the National Court to take the case forward, and
dismissed concerns that it would harm bilateral relations between the two
countries.
He said that some of the victims of the alleged torture were Spaniards,
strengthening the argument for Spanish jurisdiction.
"When you bring a case like this you can't stop to make political judgments
as to how it might affect bilateral relations between countries," he told the
AP." It's too important for that."
Boye noted that the case was brought not against interrogators who might have
committed crimes but by the lawyers and other high-placed officials who gave
cover for their actions.
"Our case is a denunciation of lawyers, by lawyers, because we don't believe
our profession should be used to help commit such barbarities," he said.
Another lawyer with detailed knowledge of the case told the AP that Garzon's
decision to consider the charges was "a significant first step." The lawyer
spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the
media.
There was no immediate comment from Garzon or the government.
The judge's decision to send the case against the American officials to
prosecutors means it will proceed, at least for now. Prosecutors must now decide
whether to recommend a full-blown investigation, though Garzon is not bound by
their decision.
The proceedings against the Bush Administration officials could be
embarrassing for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero,
who has been keen to improve ties with the United States after frosty relations
during the Bush Administration.
Zapatero is scheduled to meet President Barack Obama for the first time on
April 5 during a summit in Prague.
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