Spain opens criminal case against Bush officials

Spain opens criminal case against Bush officials Sun, 29 Mar 2009

Alberto Gonzales is accused of devising the legal foundation for interrogation techniques like waterboarding. A Spanish court has agreed to open a criminal case against six former Bush administration officials over allegations of supporting torture. Gonzalo Boye, a Madrid lawyer who filed the complaint, told the AP on Saturday that human rights lawyers brought the case before leading anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzon. Garzon who is famous for ordering the arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 has accepted the case and sent it to the prosecutor's office for review. The former US officials including then attorney general Alberto Gonzales are accused of giving legal cover for interrogation methods like waterboarding against prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. Boye said that the six Americans cited had had well-documented roles in approving illegal interrogation techniques, redefining torture and abandoning the definition set by the 1984 Torture Convention. The other officials named are former undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, former vice president Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes. For instance, Yoo wrote a series of secret memos that claimed the president had the legal authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions. Yoo declined to comment on Saturday. Messages left for Bybee and Haynes were not immediately returned. However, Feith rejected the charges, saying that "The charges as related to me make no sense. They criticize me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated." Even if indictments are eventually handed down against the US officials, it is far from clear whether arrests would ever take place. The officials would have to travel outside the United States and to a country willing to take them into custody before possible extradition to Spain. http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=193243