Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón Real is a Spanish former judge in Spain's central criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional the court responsible for investigation of the most serious criminal cases, including terrorism, organised crime, crimes against humanity, Illegal drug trade, money laundering and state terrorism.
Garzón came to international prominence in 1998 by having former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet arrested in London for extradition based on international human rights law. The judge had already become well known in Spain for investigating Basque separatist group ETA and for his probe into government death squads in the 1980s which is thought to have helped to bring down the Socialist government in 1996 elections. In 2005, as a result of Garzón´s indictment of a group of men for their alleged membership of a terrorist group, 24 were put on trial in Europe's biggest trial of alleged al-Qaeda operatives.
In 2009 Garzón made a controversial judgement that the acts of repression committed by the Franco regime were crimes against humanity.
In 2010, Garzón was suspended from judicial activity and in 2012 he was convicted of willful abuse of power and disbarred for a period of 11 years. The trials and conviction were condemned internationally including by the International Commission of Jurists and the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the basis that the case was arbitrary and did not comply with the principles of judicial independence and impartiality and violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
After 2012, Garzón has held many positions including as director of the legal defense of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; as an advisor to the International Criminal Court; in Argentina as director of international advice at the Secretariat of Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights; in Colombia, he advised the Attorney General's Office; and in Ecuador, he was appointed coordinator of the International Oversight Committee on Justice Reform.
Garzón holds honorary doctorates from twenty-two universities around the world and is the recipient of numerous prizes.
Personal life
Born in Torres, Jaén, Garzón graduated from the University of Seville in 1979. He was appointed to the Audiencia Nacional in 1988, and rapidly made his name in Spain by pursuing the Basque separatist group ETA. In December 2023 he married his partner, former Attorney General of Spain Dolores Delgado.Political career
In 1993, Garzón asked for an extended leave of absence as a judge and went into politics, running for the Congress of Deputies as an independent candidate on the party list of the then ruling party Partido Socialista Obrero Español. Prime Minister Felipe González appointed him head of a strengthened National Plan Against Drugs, but Garzón resigned shortly after being appointed, complaining of lack of support from the government, and returned to the Audiencia Nacional.Selected Spanish cases
Government Death Squads
GAL were state terrorist death squads illegally established by officials of the Spanish government during the Basque conflict to fight against ETA, the main Basque separatist militant group. They were active from 1983 to 1987. Garzon's 1994 investigation led to the conviction of José Barrionuevo Peña, a former Interior minister, as head of GAL and specifically, for ordering and financing the kidnap of alleged ETA activist, Segundo Marey.Drug-trafficking
Garzón supervised several police operations against drug-trafficking in Galicia from about 1990. Colombian cartels, such as the Medellín Cartel, were using the Galician mafia, already accustomed to smuggling tobacco, to smuggle drugs into Spain. In 1990, Operación Nécora led to the conviction of members of the clan led by Laureano Oubiña. The following year Garzón headed another investigation, Operación Pitón, which led to the conviction of members of the Charlines clan.''Caso Atlético''
In 1999, Garzón investigated Jesús Gil, the former mayor of Marbella and owner of Atlético Madrid, who was convicted in 2002 on grounds of corruption.Ban of Basque parties Batasuna, EAE-ANV and EHAK
On 3 September 2002, Garzón accused the Basque party Batasuna of helping and funding ETA, participating in the armed organization, and as such, involved in "crimes against humanity". Police shut down offices and property of the party on Garzon's orders, and suspended for three years the operations of the party. By 2007, 22 party leaders had been arrested.In February 2009, ahead of the Spanish general election on 9 March 2008, Garzón suspended the Basque parties EAE-ANV and EHAK, and ordered the closure of their headquarters, premises, establishments and any other venues, as well as blocking the parties' bank accounts. In April 2008, the judge put on trial 41 members of the party, including Arnaldo Otegi. In September, the Supreme Court of Spain outlawed the parties EAE-ANV and EHAK. In March 2009, Garzón indicted 44 members constituting the leadership of the three parties in an indictment numbering 583 pages. The judge stated that "EAE-ANV and EHAK were manipulated by the members of the national committee of Batasuna to continue the criminal pursuit designed by ETA".
Francoist atrocities
In October 2008, Garzón formally declared as crimes against humanity the acts of repression committed by the Nationalist government during the Spanish Civil War and the years that followed the war accounting for more than one hundred thousand killings. He also ordered the exhumation of 19 unmarked mass graves, one of them believed to contain the remains of the poet Federico García Lorca. This action was controversial because the offenses were nearly 70 years old, occurring before the concept of crimes against humanity, and a 1977 Amnesty Act which barred investigations into criminal offenses with a political aim prior to 1976.On 17 November 2008, the inquiry was suspended by Garzón after state prosecutors had questioned his jurisdiction. In a 152-page statement, he passed responsibility to regional courts for opening 19 mass graves believed to hold the remains of hundreds of victims.
Bribery of politicians
Garzón started a major corruption inquiry, code-named "Gürtel" from the name of its ringleader, Francisco Correa,. The detainees were accused of bribes given to the People's Party politicians to obtain lucrative government contracts. The accused requested that the evidence be ruled inadmissible, since it was obtained from conversations between prisoners and counsel, which, under Spanish law, it was claimed, is allowed only in terrorism-related cases.Selected international cases
Augusto Pinochet
On 10 October 1998, Garzón issued an international warrant for the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for the alleged deaths and torture of Spanish citizens. The Chilean Truth Commission report was the basis for the warrant, marking the first full use of the Spanish law principle of universal jurisdiction to attempt to try a former dictator for a crime committed abroad. This action also had the effect of encouraging the Chilean justice system into action.Eventually the extradition was turned down by British Home Secretary Jack Straw, who rejected Garzón's request to have Pinochet extradited to Spain on health grounds.
Kissinger and Operation Condor
Garzón asked for permission to interview former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about terrorism and genocide that occurred as part of Operation Condor. Permission was refused.Argentina's Dirty War
Garzón also filed charges of genocide and terrorism against Argentine military officers for the disappearance of Spanish citizens during Argentina's 1976–1983 dictatorship's Dirty War. Eventually, Adolfo Scilingo and Miguel Angel Cavallo were prosecuted in separate cases. Cavallo was extradited from Mexico to Spain in 2003 and eventually tried in Argentina. Scilingo was convicted, and sentenced in 2007 to over 1,000 years incarceration for his crimes.Guantanamo
Garzón issued indictments for five Guantanamo detainees, including Spaniard Abderrahman Ahmad and Jordanian Jamil El Banna. Ahmad was extradited to Spain on 14 February 2004. El Banna was released to the United Kingdom, and in 2007, Garzón dropped the charges against him on humanitarian grounds.Bush Six
In March 2009, Garzón considered whether Spain should allow charges to be filed against former officials from the United States government under George W. Bush for offering justifications for torture. The six former Bush officials are: Alberto Gonzales, former Attorney General John Yoo, of the Office of Legal Counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; William Haynes II, former general counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, also at Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff. However, the investigation was assigned to Judge Eloy Velasco who chose not to pursue it stating that Spain could not investigate the case if the U.S. did not intend to conduct its own investigation into the matter.On 29 April 2009, Garzón opened an investigation into an alleged "systematic programme" of torture at Guantánamo Bay, following accusations by four former prisoners. Similarly, the leaked cable indicates that the Chief Prosecutor intended to also fight this investigation and that he feared, "Garzón may attempt to wring all the publicity he can from the case unless and until he is forced to give it up."
In September 2009, the Spanish newspaper Público reported that, despite opposition, Garzón was proceeding to the next phase of his investigation.