Spain: Judge Garzon an investigates into torture at Guantanamo

The Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon opened Wednesday a preliminary investigation aimed particularly those suspected of torture committed in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay as part of a systematic plan from the Bush administration.

•     The investigation targets the perpetrators and accomplices of the torture and designers of the prison system in the Guantanamo base in Cuba, according to a trial report from the judge Garzon received by the press.
  
      It follows a complaint filed by four former Guantanamo prisoners, including Ahmed Hamed Abderrahmane, nicknamed the ‘Spanish Taliban’, and a Moroccan living in Spain, a Palestinian and a Libyan.
  
      This investigation is unrelated to any other proceedings for torture to six former officials of the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush who worked with the legal concept of Guantanamo, which the Spanish prosecutor has formally objected April 17.
  
      It is based on universal jurisdiction that recognizes since 2005 the Spanish justice system to investigate on crimes against humanity, genocide and torture committed in the world.
  
      This competence is applied, however, in case the allegations are not or have not been subject to any inquiry in the country where they were committed.
  
      Judge Garzon wrote that the memos to the former Bush administration recently published seem to confirm what was suspected before the existence of an authorized plan and systematic torture at Guantanamo.
  
      The judge, known worldwide for having arrested the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998, said he will seek U.S. transmission of these documents.
  
      “This systematic plan sets the possible existence of concerted action for the execution of a multitude of crimes of torture against persons detained in Guantanamo and other prisons, including those of Bagram” in Afghanistan, continues Judge Garzon.
  
      Some 800 adolescents and adults suspected of terrorist activities have passed through the cells of Guantanamo, of which only twenty have been charged. About 240 are still detained.
  
      Many claimed to have suffered abuse and humiliation at Guantanamo camp to be closed by December under a decree signed in January by the new U.S. president Barack Obama.
  
      The Spanish prosecutor objected April 17 at the opening of an investigation by Judge Garzon on the basis of a complaint against legal officials of the Bush administration who were allegedly involved in the design of Guantanamo.
  
      The President Obama is reluctant to initiate an inquiry into Guantanamo. He nevertheless left open the possibility of prosecuting the authors of the memos in Bush administration having made legal muscled interrogation methods and even torture at the camp.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ afp