Spain’s Socialist Party government suppresses torture probe of Bush officials

25 April 2009

World Socialist Web Site

The Obama administration and Spain’s Socialist Party (PSOE) government are working in tandem to prevent the prosecution of top Bush officials.

President Barack Obama and Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero were both popularly elected because of their professed opposition to the war in Iraq and abhorrence of unlawful detention and torture in the so-called “war on terror.” Instead, they have colluded in a global effort to protect the authors of these crimes.

Spain’s attorney general, Candido Conde-Pumpido, earlier this month denied an appeal to prosecute six officials from the Bush administration. The decision was taken by the man appointed by the PSOE government as its foremost legal figure.

The accused were former White House counsel and later Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith and David Addington, the former chief of staff and legal advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney.

The case against them was brought by the Association for the Dignity of Prisoners, which alleged that the officials were the legal draughtsmen of a policy that led to the torture of six Spanish citizens at Guantánamo Bay. Their charges have been buttressed by the recent release of secret post-9/11 memos by the US Justice Department detailing and approving the use of illegal and abusive interrogation tactics, including waterboarding, against alleged Al Qaeda operatives held by the United States.

Investigative Judge Baltasar Garzón accepted the case and forwarded it to prosecutors at Spain’s National Court for an opinion as to whether it could proceed. Conde-Pumpido intervened to shut down the case. “If there is a reason to file a complaint against these people, it should be done before local courts with jurisdiction, in other words, in the United States,” he declared.

He turned on its head the justification used to prosecute the leaders of Serbia, such as former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, for “command responsibility” for crimes committed during the Balkans war, stating, “If one is dealing with a crime of mistreatment of prisoners of war, the complaint should go against those who physically carried it out.”

There are reports that the PSOE government is stepping up pressure to restrict the use of universal jurisdiction pleas to pursue high-ranking officials accused of human rights abuses, and thereby block the ability to initiate such actions in future.

Zapatero’s government has domestic concerns in this regard. Last year, Garzón abandoned an investigation into the executions and repression carried out by the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco after a similar intervention by Conde-Pumpido, motivated by fear that undermining the “pact of silence” agreed during the transition to parliamentary democracy fo