Spain's Judge Garzon Says U.S. Secretly Working to Have Wikileaks Founder Tried There

[sabrina 1]

26. I don't need to tell you about any of those judges. Many people, far more informed than I

or you about Spain's judiciary have explained what happened to Garvon.

From Democracy Now, from one such individual, of whom there are many:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/2/10/spanish_judge_baltasar_garzn_disbarred_in|

Spanish Judge Garzón Disbarred in Trial Seen as Retaliation for Trailblazing Human Rights Work

AMY GOODMAN: ......

Well, to talk more about the ruling against Judge Garzón, we’re joined by Reed Brody, counsel and spokesperson for Human Rights Watch in Brussels. He was observing Garzón’s trial in Madrid, is now with us in New York.

Can you just tell us what happened?

REED BRODY: Sure. Well, as you said, there were three cases against Garzón. I mean, this was a concerted effort by his enemies within the conservative Spanish judiciary essentially to get rid of him. And the first case, accusing him of failing to apply Spain’s amnesty law, got such a bad reaction internationally, but other cases were leapfrogged in front of that.

And in this case, he ordered that the alleged ringleaders of a massive corruption scandal—over 120 million euros, $180 million, involving payoffs within the now-ruling Popular Party—he ordered that the defendants be wiretapped, because, allegedly, the lawyers, who were in conversation with them, were laundering the money. And in fact, one of the lawyers was actually indicted for money laundering. He ordered the wiretaps on the recommendation of a prosecutor. When the case was moved to another jurisdiction, the new prosecutor recommended the wiretaps, and the new judge continued the wiretaps. And despite the fact that one of the lawyers was in fact indicted for laundering the proceeds of this scandal, the wiretaps were quashed. That’s OK. What then happened, though, is that he was actually prosecuted by the defendants. And the conservative judiciary accepted the case, and he has now been convicted of having abused his authority by ordering these wiretaps.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I mean, it almost seems that as long as he was willing to deal with cases internationally, that it was OK by the Spanish judiciary. But as soon as he began to look at the Franco regime, the atrocities of the Franco regime, or begin to zero in on possible corruption within his own government, suddenly they went out to get him.

REED BRODY: Well, he has made a lot of enemies, particularly in the Popular Party. But also, let’s not forget that he had—his actions resulted in the indictment of a Socialist Interior Ministry for supporting death squads in the Basque country. So he had made enemies on both sides of the spectrum. And this was really a concerted effort to cut him down to size, which—a massive attack on the independence of the judiciary and on a very brave judge.

So tell me, why were the two Prosecutors, the one whose advice Garzon followed and the one who upheld the wire-taps not prosecuted? Apparently considering the involvement of the lawyers in the corruption, those wire-taps were legal. It was the fact that they were implicated, that Garzon and two others approved of the wire-taps.

A clear case of the Far Right going after a courageous Judge who would not stop exposing and prosecuting War Criminals.