Spanish judge defies pressure to scrap Guantanamo torture case against Bush
by Raw Story on 22-04-2014
| BRussells Tribunal |
A Spanish judge has just decided to proceed with a case against Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, prosecuting them for torture at Guantanamo.
Judge Pablo Ruz at the National Court, in a written decision, refused to scrap the case despite a recent reform to restrict such human rights probes in Spain.[Image via Agence France-Presse]
The Spanish legislature can be expected to try to block the case, unless perhaps they hear our voices loudly and clearly enough.Click here to sign the letter we will deliver to Spain.
We began this effort in 2011, visiting Spanish embassies, placing billboards in Spain, and communicating our appreciation for Spanish efforts to prosecute U.S. torturers. Now we need another big push.
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Partner organizations behind this effort include: CodePink Women for Peace, High Road for Human Rights, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, National Accountability Action Network, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, Pax Christi USA, Progressive Democrats of America, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Robert Jackson Steering Committee, RootsAction.org, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Tackling Torture at the Top Committee of Women Against Military Madness, Veterans for Peace, Voters for Peace, War Criminals Watch, WarIsACrime.org, WeThePeopleNow.org, and World Can't Wait. Additional signers include: Amnesty International USA, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Council for the National Interest, Democrats.com, Fellowship on Reconciliation, United for Peace and Justice, Velvet Revolution, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, War Resisters League, Witness Against Torture, the BRussells Tribunal, No More Guantanamos.
Background:
A Spanish judge on Tuesday defied pressure to scrap a probe into alleged torture in the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay which targets former U.S. president George W. Bush.
Judge Pablo Ruz at the National Court, in a written decision, refused to scrap the case despite a recent reform to restrict such human rights probes in Spain.
He also vowed to press on with two other investigations into alleged genocide in the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara from the 1970s.
Ruz opened the investigations under universal jurisdiction — a principle that allows judges to try certain atrocities committed in other countries.
Spain’s parliament, dominated by the conservative ruling Popular Party, last month passed a government reform to restrict courts’ powers to apply universal jurisdiction.
That reform came after a lawsuit alleging atrocities by Chinese leaders in Tibet, which annoyed China, a major trading partner of Spain.
Rights groups have criticised the reform, saying it puts economic and diplomatic interests before human rights.
The Spanish courts agreed in 2009 to probe charges brought by four ex-Guantanamo detainees who say they were tortured during their detention in the camp between 2002 and 2005.
Among those cited in the charges are Bush, US former vice president Dick Cheney and ex-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
The new law says courts in Spain can only probe atrocities committed abroad if the suspects are Spanish.
But Ruz said in Tuesday’s judgement that Spain had an “obligation” under international treaties to investigate alleged atrocities even if the suspects were not Spanish.
In one of the two other cases, plaintiffs accuse Moroccan authorities of genocide in Western Sahara, a disputed region annexed by Morocco in the late 1970s.
The third case alleges genocide in Western Sahara by the Polisario Front, a pro-independence force in the region.
Ruz said he could investigate those allegations on the grounds that Western Sahara was a Spanish territory at the time.
Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara was never recognised internationally.
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