33 images Created 25 Jul 2012
Baltazar Garzon
The celebrated Spanish human rights investigator Baltasar Garzón escaped a second conviction for abuse of his powers, when the supreme court declared him not guilty in a case involving his investigation of crimes committed under the Franco dictatorship.
The decision came too late to save Garzón's career as an investigating magistrate as the the supreme court had already disbarred him in a separate case for wiretapping conversations between defence lawyers and their clients in a corruption investigation involving the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy's People's party.
The verdict means Garzón has been found guilty in only one of three cases brought against him, but campaigners still point to the extraordinary nature of these cases, with no investigating magistrate ever having been pursued by his fellow judges on three separate charges before.Six of the seven supreme court judges on the panel that heard Garzón's case declared him not guilty, with one in favour of a guilty verdict.
They argued that it was not the court's job to pursue the "historic truth" about the past, while recognising that many events during and, especially, after the Spanish civil war would nowadays be classified as crimes against humanity.
The decision came too late to save Garzón's career as an investigating magistrate as the the supreme court had already disbarred him in a separate case for wiretapping conversations between defence lawyers and their clients in a corruption investigation involving the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy's People's party.
The verdict means Garzón has been found guilty in only one of three cases brought against him, but campaigners still point to the extraordinary nature of these cases, with no investigating magistrate ever having been pursued by his fellow judges on three separate charges before.Six of the seven supreme court judges on the panel that heard Garzón's case declared him not guilty, with one in favour of a guilty verdict.
They argued that it was not the court's job to pursue the "historic truth" about the past, while recognising that many events during and, especially, after the Spanish civil war would nowadays be classified as crimes against humanity.