Slashdot Mirror
Spanish Superjudge To Represent Assange
First time accepted submitter ccguy writes "Spanish ex-judge Balsazar Garzón will represent wikileak's Julian Assange in his extradiction case. In the past 30 years Garzón has led the most important investigations in Spain: Against drug cartels, against terrorist groups (ETA), and against corruption. He's also famous for his attempt to extradite Chilean dictator Pinochet to Spain to judge him for crimes against humanity. In his last investigation Garzón ordered in-prison conversations between corrupt politicians and their lawyers to be monitored. This is legal in Spain if the goal is to prevent further crimes to be committed (such as the inmate telling his lawyer to destroy evidence, or offshore funds). This caused Garzón to be disbarred as a judge. The president of the Supreme Court that signed this disbarment (Carlos Dívar) was later on made to resign, after it was discovered that he used taxpayers' money for deluxe vacations."
In US, closest equivalent to Garzon would be Kenneth Starr or Spiro Agnew, or Lynne Stewart.
That doesn't speak very well of the US, does it?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Curious what the /, groupthink thinks of his attempt to extradite a Chilean and try him for crimes in a separate country. We all know the opinion on the US doing it, but what about Spain?
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Well, the wikipedia article on him makes it sound a lot more complicated than that, in that "Under Spanish law, such wiretaps are only expressly permitted for terrorism cases and the legality of their use in other cases is more vague". There were a number of other charges too.
From the sound of it, he was a very popular judge among the left because he went hard after members of the former Franco government for crimes against humanity. But he sounds like he at the very least "bent the rules" to do so, and the right in Spain was more than willing to take him down for it.
"... Sean Hannity, whose surgery to remove those bolts from his neck was apparently successful,
We certainly do. But still, this man has the ego the size of a medieval castle and thought he was above the law. He himself lent the bad guys the weapons they used to destroy him. A pity, but a self inflicted pity.
Are we talking about Assange or Garzon here?
Turn in YOUR geek card now. Three sea shells was from Demolition Man.
It isn't all that much of a stretch from Pinochet to Kim Dotcom
Let's see: one is accused of copyrights infringement, the other of murdering thousands.
Yeah, not much of a stretch.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
You don't have to be against the idea of "nations" to believe Assange is not a traitor. To think he's a "traitor", you just have to be a stupid American who thinks US law and policy applies globally.