Spanish judge subpoenaed in civil war probe

MADRID — The Spanish judge famous for indicting Augusto Pinochet and Osama bin Laden will testify before the Supreme Court on Wednesday about allegations he acted without jurisdiction in undertaking an inquiry of Spanish civil war-era crimes, an official said.

The Supreme Court began investigating the judge, Baltasar Garzon of the National Court, in May at the request of an ultraconservative union of civil servants called Manos Limpias.

His subpoena was announced Tuesday by an official at the National Court who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with court rules.

Since the investigation began, Garzon has not been suspended from his post or charged, and denies any wrongdoing.

Still, his being called to testify as a suspect is the latest in a series of recent setbacks for the once high-flying magistrate, a divisive figure human rights groups hail as a crusading international hero but many Spanish conservatives deride as overly ambitious and obsessed with fame.

In June, his superiors fined him euro300 ($430) for an administrative oversight that forced Garzon to free two jailed drug trafficking suspects.

Late last year a high-profile Islamic terror trial instigated by Garzon — over an alleged plot to truck bomb the court that is the hub of Spain’s terror probes and houses his office — largely fell apart in court. Of 45 people initially arrested on Garzon’s orders, only six were convicted.

Garzon also was investigated this year, and cleared, over allegations he improperly got paid for teaching in New York a few years ago while on sabbatical from his job in Madrid.

Garzon is best known as a champion of Spain’s doctrine of cross-border justice. He indicted former Chilean Pinochet in 1998 and had him arrested while Pinochet was visiting London, but in the end Britain declined to extradite him, saying he was too frail. The judge also charged bin Laden in 2003 over the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Bin Laden remains at large.

In August, Garzon turned his sights on Spain’s own past, launching an investigation into the disappearance of tens of thousands of civilians during the 1936-39 Spanish civil war at the hands of supporters of Gen. Francisco Franco, and in the early years of the Franco regime. That was the first official investigation into a still-divisive period of history which had been taboo for many Spaniards and was shaping up as a huge case for Garzon.

Garzon argued that Franco and his cohorts engaged in a crime against humanity — Garzon cited a systematic campaign by Franco to eliminate opponents — and said this had no statute of limitations. The judge ordered the unearthing of dozens of mass graves believed to hold remains of victims of pro-Franco militia.

Prosecutors objected to the investigation, arguing such crimes were covered by an amnesty passed in 1977 — two years after Franco died — as Spain moved to restore democracy and focus on rebuilding the ruined nation rather than on reopening old wounds.

Garzon ultimately bowed out and transferred the case to provincial-level courts.

But Manos Limpias later argued to the Supreme Court that even before dropping the case Garzon knowingly overstepped his bounds by ordering government agencies to provide him with information on wartime missing, even though cases of forced disappearance do not fall under the jurisdiction of his court.