Spanish Judge Presses Ahead With Lawsuit Against Bush Lawyers

The Spanish newspaper Público reported Saturday that Judge Baltasar Garzón is pressing ahead with a case against six senior Bush administration lawyers for facilitating the torture of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, according to Andy Worthington.

In March, Judge Garzón announced that he was planning to investigate the legal architects of the Bush detention and interrogation policies, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Office of Legal Counsel attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee, former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, and former Pentagon general counsel William Haynes. But he dropped that investigation on the advice of the Spanish Attorney General.

Now, though, according to Público, Judge Garzón has agreed to move forward with a lawsuit against the same six lawyers brought by several Spanish legal and human rights organizations and three former Guantanamo detainees.

Still, political pressures could force Garzon to back down. As Worthington reports, the Spanish Parliament in June passed a law aimed at “ending the practice of letting its magistrates seek war-crime indictments against officials from any foreign country, including the United States,” on the basis that Spanish courts should not judge foreign countries’ officials unless the victims are Spanish or the crimes were committed in Spain.