Spanish Judge to Continue Investigation into Bush Adminstration Torture Policy

Today, Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzón announced that an inquiry into the Bush administration’s torture policy will proceed as a formal criminal investigation.

Scott Horton writes:

The procedural history of the case is somewhat complicated. On March 17, a Spanish human rights organization, the Association for the Dignity of Prisoners (Asociación pro dignidad de los presos y presas de España), filed a criminal complaint asking the court to begin a criminal investigation into the role that six Bush administration lawyers played in the introduction of a torture regime at Guantánamo. The complaint cited Chapter III of Title XXIV of the Spanish Criminal Code, which addresses crimes against prisoners and protected persons during an armed conflict, which implements Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Named as targets were former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former chief of staff to the vice president David Addington, former general counsel of the Department of Defense William J. Haynes II, former Under-Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, former assistant attorney general and current federal judge Jay Bybee and former deputy assistant attorney general and now professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley John Yoo.

Spanish lawyers close to the case tell me that under applicable Spanish law, the Obama administration has the power to bring the proceedings in Spain against former Bush administration officials to a standstill. “All it has to do is launch its own criminal investigation through the Justice Department,” said one lawyer working on the case, “that would immediately stop the case in Spain.”