The Daily Beast has a scoop that (if true!) is going to make life rather awkward for rather a lot of people:
Scott Horton reports that:Spanish prosecutors have decided to press forward with a criminal investigation targeting former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales and five top associates over their role in the torture of five Spanish citizens held at Guantánamo, several reliable sources close to the investigation have told The Daily Beast. Their decision is expected to be announced on Tuesday before the Spanish central criminal court, the Audencia Nacional, in Madrid.
No-one should be surprised by this. It is, as Horton says, a matter of “unintended consequences” but they are also consequences that were, I’m afraid, predictable too. I tend to take the view that a panicked reaction in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is one thing (and in fact entirely reasonable) but actions taken months and years after it quite another and it is distressing how many people and pundits on the American right fail to understand that Guantanamo is, for many people, a more grievous stain than anything else done in the Bush years. Iraq* can be considered – if you will – a blunder; Guantanamo (and Bagram) cannot.The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington and former Under-Secretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. “The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.
*Standard disclosure: I was more vehemently in favour of the Iraq war than it is entirely comfortable to recall.
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