Argentines try probing crimes of Franco's Spain [View All]

Source: Associated Press

Apr 14, 2:32 PM EDT
Argentines try probing crimes of Franco's Spain
By ALMUDENA CALATRAVA
Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Argentine human rights groups turned the tables on Spain Wednesday, asking for a local judicial probe of murders and disappearances as well as alleged genocide committed during Spain's Civil War and Gen. Francisco Franco's long dictatorship.

Relatives of three Spaniards and an Argentine killed during the 1936-39 war presented their complaint in federal court, and their lawyers said they hoped to add many more cases in the months to come.

Such cross-border human rights probes have long been the specialty of Spain's crusading investigative judge Baltasar Garzon, whose case against Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1998 helped lead to the undoing of amnesties that had protected Latin America's dictators.

But Garzon himself now faces a potentially career-ending trial on charges of abusing his authority by opening an investigation into deaths and disappearances in Franco's Spain.

So Garzon's supporters hope to launch the same investigation - citing the same principles of international law - from Buenos Aires.



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