http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1888572,00.html
By Lisa Abend / Madrid
Mar. 31, 2009
Nacho Doce/Reuters
Chile’s Pinochet. Argentina’s Scilingo. Guatemala’s Rios
Montt. To the roster of international figures whom Spanish investigative judge
Baltasar Garzón has sought to bring to justice, the name of Gonzales may soon
be added — as in Alberto Gonzales, former U.S. Attorney General and one of the
legal minds behind the Bush Administration’s justification of the use of
torture at Guantánamo.
On March 17, a group of lawyers representing the
Association for the Dignity of Prisoners, a Spanish human-rights group, filed a
complaint in Spain’s National Court against Gonzales and five other former
officials, including Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and the Justice
Department’s John Yoo, for violating international law by creating a legal
framework that permitted the torture of suspected terrorists. On March 29, the
complaint became public after Garzón, who had been assigned the case, sent it
to the prosecutor’s office for review, a step seen by many familiar with the
court as a sign that the judge will soon agree to investigate the case.
“It’s still a bit early,” says Almudena Bernabeu, international
attorney with the San Francisco–based Center for Justice and Accountability,
which has brought claims before the National Court on behalf of victims of
human-rights abuse in Guatemala and El Salvador. “But it’s a great
step.” (See pictures of Pakistan’s lawyers celebrating victory.)
It is a step on a path that Garzón and other judges in
the same court have been down many times before. Spain’s National Court is
perhaps the world’s leading practitioner of universal jurisdiction, a legal
principle that holds that in crimes of exceptional gravity, the right to render
judgment is not limited to the country where the crime was committed. It’s a
principle that helped Garzón famously order the arrest and extradition of
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 and that seven years later helped
convict Argentine military officer Adolfo Scilingo of crimes against humanity.
The National Court has also heard cases against high-ranking Chinese officials
on behalf of Tibet and Falun Gong, and against Israel for its attacks in Gaza.
(See pictures of Israeli soldiers sweeping into Gaza.)
For Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who filed this
latest complaint, the legal cover that Gonzales, Yoo and other possible
defendants provided for waterboarding and other abuses at Guantánamo warrants
the international investigation. “Bush made a political decision based on
the advice he was getting from his judicial advisers,” says Boye.
“And what his advisers were telling him to do is a very serious
crime.”
No doubt there’s a bit of strategy in aiming at Yoo and
Feith (the complaint also brings charges against William Haynes, former general
counsel for the Department of Defense; Jay Bybee, of the Office of Legal
Counsel at the Justice Department; and David Addington, Dick Cheney’s chief of
staff). “Politically, going after lower-level officials is a lot more
palatable than going against a former President and Vice President,” says
international-law professor Robert Goldman, director of the War Crimes Research
Office at American University. “Plus, there’s a lot more direct evidence
when it comes to Yoo, Bybee and Addington. Their fingerprints are all over
these policies.” (Reached by e-mail, Bybee, now a judge on the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals, said he had no comment.)
But direct evidence or no, can the case have anything
more than symbolic impact? “That’s the toughest question,” admits
Bernabeu. “It’s hard to believe we would see them face justice in a
Spanish courtroom.” Indeed, when Spain’s National Court brought charges
against U.S. military personnel for willfully firing on the Hotel Palestine in
Baghdad, where journalists were known to stay, and killing Spanish cameraman
José Couso, the three indicted officers simply ignored the subpoena. The court
later dropped the charges on appeal. (Vote for the 2009 TIME 100 Finalists.)
That’s not to say, however, that there won’t be an impact
should the case go forward. Several human-rights organizations in the U.S. are
said to be preparing their own charges against the authors and signatories of
the so-called Torture Memos, and their cases may be strengthened by the mere
fact that a Spanish investigation has begun. “It’s ironic that we
sometimes have to use international courts to encourage national ones to take
action, but that’s the way it works,” says Bernabeu. “And having a
national court take action can be a way of stopping things from happening
elsewhere in the world.” (Read “The Bush Administration’s Most
Despicable Act.”)
Furthermore, if Garzón subpoenas the lawyers and they
fail to appear in his court, he will then most likely issue an international
arrest warrant for each, just as he did for Pinochet, who was subsequently
taken into custody while convalescing after back surgery in Britain. “If I
were these fellows, I’d be very careful about where I traveled,” notes
Goldman.
But Boye believes the legal complaint will have far more
than symbolic effect. Asked whether he expected to see Gonzales or others in a
Spanish court or an American one, he replied, “I expect to see them in
court, full stop. You know why? Because I believe in the American system of
justice.”