El 'New York Times': "Procesar a Garzón es una ofensa a la justicia y a la historia"
El diario publica hoy un duro editorial contra el Supremo, al que reclama la absolución del juez
La verdad a juicio en España. Así se titula el editorial que el prestigioso diario estadounidense The New York Times publica hoy en defensa del juez Baltasar Garzón. "España es ahora una democracia viva, pero el juicio contra Baltasar Garzón iniciado la pasada semana [el de la memoria histórica] es un preocupante eco del pensamiento totalitario de la era de Franco", asegura la cabecera para quien el juez estaba amparado por el derecho internacional cuando estableció que ante crímenes contra la humanidad no podían aplicarse leyes de amnistía. "Miles de fosas siguen cerradas", recuerda el diario.
Para The New York Times, el Tribunal Supremo "nunca debió haber aceptado este caso", abierto, recuerdan, tras la denuncia de "dos grupos de extrema derecha".
El diario llama también la atención sobre el hecho de que en España, "donde los procesos contra magistrados son poco frecuentes", un solo juez tenga tres causas abiertas, lo que "podría frenar la independencia judicial".
"El juez Garzón se hizo famoso por sus procesos contra los terroristas vascos, torturadores argentinos, el dictador chileno Augusto Pinochet y políticos españoles. Sus poderosos enemigos ahora ven la oportunidad de terminar con su carrera. El juez Garzón es a veces innegablemente ambicioso, pero procesarle por excavar en los crímenes de la era franquista es una ofensa a la justicia y a la historia. El Tribunal Supremo debe absolverle", concluye el periódico.
http://politica.elpais.com/politica/2012/02/05/actualidad/1328451036_306475.html
EDITORIAL
Truth on Trial in Spain
Published: February 4, 2012
Terrible crimes were committed during and after Spain’s 1936-39 civil war that no court has yet examined or judged. No one knows how many people were taken away, tortured and murdered. Now, one of Spain’s top investigating magistrates, Baltasar Garzón, is on trial for daring to open an inquiry into those atrocities.
Spain is now a vibrant democracy, but Judge Garzón’s trial, which opened last week, is a disturbing echo of the Franco era’s totalitarian thinking. He faces criminal charges that could suspend him from the bench for 20 years for defying an amnesty enacted in 1977 to smooth the transition to democracy. He rightly counters that under international law, there can be no amnesty for crimes against humanity and that unsolved disappearances — thousands of mass graves are unopened — constitute a continuing crime.
In 2008, Judge Garzón briefly began an official inquiry, ordering the opening of 19 mass graves and symbolically indicting Gen. Francisco Franco and several former officials, none still alive, for the disappearance of more than 100,000 people. An appellate court shut the inquiry down. The next year, two far-right groups brought criminal charges against the judge for defying the amnesty law. The government’s prosecutor argued that no crime had been committed, but the Supreme Court accepted the case.
Separately, Judge Garzón faces criminal charges for rulings in two other politically charged cases. We cannot judge the merits of these. But criminal prosecution of magistrates for their rulings is rare in Spain, and could chill judicial independence.
Judge Garzón became famous for his prosecutions of Basque terrorists, Argentine torturers, Chile’s former dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and Spanish politicians. His powerful enemies now see a chance to end his career.
Judge Garzón is undeniably flamboyant and at times overreaches, but prosecuting him for digging into Franco-era crimes is an offense against justice and history. The Spanish Supreme Court never should have accepted this case. Now it must acquit him.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/truth-on-trial-in-spain.html?_r=1&ref=baltasargarzon
Llegado el momento haré mis comentaros personales sobre el asunto, mientras tanto iré actualizando con las diversas y encontradas reacciones que provocan éstos juicios en el panorama nacional e internacional.