Verdict of judge Garzon slammed as "unjust" and "a shame"

Feb 9, 2012, 15:49 GMT

Madrid - Spain's Supreme Court on Thursday convicted the country's most famous judge, Baltasar Garzon, for tapping conversations between corruption suspects and their lawyers, disbarring him for 11 years.

Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon said he 'respected' the verdict, while the left-wing opposition criticized it as 'worrying' and 'unjust.'

A platform of Garzon's supporters slammed the verdict as 'repulsive' and as a 'shame' for the Spanish judiciary.

Garzon is internationally known for his human rights investigations, including an unsuccessful attempt to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from London in 1998.

The court said that Garzon had engaged in professional misconduct and violated constitutional guarantees when ordering the wiretapping of conversations between jailed corruption suspects and their lawyers in 2009.

The court also said the judge had violated the suspects' right to prepare their defence, 'arbitrarily' engaging in practices typical of 'totalitarian regimes.'

The tapping concerned suspects in the so-called Guertel affair, a corruption scandal allegedly involving dozens of entrepreneurs and regional and local politicians from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative People's Party (PP).

Entrepreneurs bribed politicians into giving them lucrative contracts, according to judicial investigations.

Garzon's defence said he ordered the tapping to make sure the suspects' lawyers would not help them launder criminal money.

The verdict was seen as a death blow to the decades-long career of the 56-year-old judge, who is known for his investigations into alleged human rights abuses, ranging from Argentina to Guantanamo and Western Sahara.

Garzon's lawyer said he was considering appealing against the verdict at the Constitutional Court and at the European Court of Human Rights.

Thursday's sentence had no official connection with another trial, which deals with Garzon's attempt to launch Spain's first judicial inquiry into the crimes of Francisco Franco's 1939-75 dictatorship.

Garzon accused the Franco regime of unlawfully killing more than 100,000 alleged opponents during the 1936-39 Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship. But he was forced to drop his inquiry.

The trial dealing with the Franco inquiry held its final session on Wednesday. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a verdict in the coming weeks.

Garzon's supporters in Spain and abroad see the two trials as being linked. They feel the judge has been subjected to witch-hunt by conservatives sympathetic to Franco, corrupt politicians targeted by his investigations, and colleagues jealous of his fame.

Groups of Garzon's supporters have demonstrated outside the Supreme Court during both trials, claiming that the tribunal was dominated by a political right sympathetic to Franco.

Julio Villarrubia, justice spokesman for the main opposition Socialist Party, said Thursday he was 'surprised and worried' to see a guilty verdict handed to a judge who had fought tirelessly against drug trafficking, terrorism and corruption.

'Today is a sad day for democrats,' said Cayo Lara from the far-left party Izquierda Unida, describing the verdict as 'unjust.'

On Wednesday, a group of United Nations experts on independence of judges expressed concern over the Franco trial. 'Supposed errors in judicial decisions should not be a reason for the removal of a judge,' said Gabriela Knaul, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges.

The trial has also attracted widespread attention in Latin America. Many of Franco's victims are now pinning their hopes on an investigation which has been opened in Argentina into the dictatorship's crimes.