Torture Lawyer Probe Back on Track in Spain

By Scott Horton

Baltasar Garzón is Spain’s best known judge. He’s also as determined a criminal investigator as can be found anywhere, and not one who cares much for the efforts of politicians to manipulate his work. So those who know him can hardly be surprised by his response to the Zapatero government’s effort to shut down his examination of Bush-era torture policies and the lawyers who brought them about. Today a thunderbolt out of Madrid: the case against the Bush torture lawyers moves into the formal criminal investigative phase, and Garzón is focusing on the documents that the Justice Department just released. A “systematic program for torture,” he calls it. Indictments to come? Get the details in my latest report on the events out of Madrid here.