Spanish Superjudge To Represent Assange 196
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."
needs more prefixes (Score:5, Informative)
Since he was removed from his judgeship, he'd be an ex-super-judge, no? Or perhaps a super-ex-judge?
Nice try (Score:1, Informative)
The paragraph of this news is manipulated and tries to disinform.
"This is legal in Spain if the goal is to prevent further crimes to be committed" FALSE. Allowed JUST in case of terrorism charges. Not applicable to the case he wiretapped. As this judge is politically compromised and the "separation of powers" is against his politics-truffled-past, always has friends ready to write in his favour.
Assange is doomed with this guy.
Re:Nice stunt (Score:5, Informative)
He is banned from practicing law in Spain
He isn't banned from practicing law. He's banning for the judicial career, but he has a law degree (obviously) and he can work as a lawyer.
Keep in mind that this guy has worked with lots of international agencies, and apparently he's found the people with the largest balls in each. Otherwise Pinochet wouldn't have spent almost a year in London, for example.
The reason he was unseated in Spain was for issuing illegal wiretaps on member of the government that were suspected of corruption.
Suspected as in jail no less. He ordered a wiretapping indeed, and everyone else in the process agreed, to make sure that the people in jail wouldn't use their lawyers to continue to commit crimes. In fact, the tapes proved that they were doing so.
To be honest the reason I submitted the story (one date late indeed, but I expected an Assange story to appear rather quickly) is to bring a bit of awareness on Garzon's story as well as the blatant corruption going on over here (Spain).
We really owe a lot to this guy, even if the end it seems like the bad guys are getting their way.
Re:Nice stunt (Score:4, Informative)
Not illegal, which is why he wasn't prosecuted, but subject to significant constraints on when a judge's discretion to use these extraordinary powers is justified. Since, after all, eavesdropping on conversations between a client and his lawyer is not normally permitted, not even in serious cases. He was found to have abused that discretion.
Re:Nice stunt (Score:4, Informative)
Does this character even have any legal standing in England or Sweden? He certainly doesn't in Spain.
Think before you write. Baltasar Garzon had to give up being a judge in Spain... not a lawyer. And, he is acting as Assange's lawyer, not as its judge, obviously.
Re:On extradition (Score:5, Informative)
Assange is accused of rape and espionage.
First, Assange is certainly not being extradited, accused of espionage nowhere in Sweden or in the UK... obviously. That is just some USA wet dream.
Second, the only dumb enough people to use the term "rape" for what he did, are the Swedish. He had sex, by mutual consent with a woman, and she found out the condom broke. Assage claims he didn't know (may be true or not, but it happened to me before and I can tell you, it's not very easy to know the exact conditions of a condom around your penis when you are inside a woman), strange enough she continued having intimate relations with Assage for some time after that, as did the other "victim" clamming the same. It was only when the two lucky girls found out we was not faithful to them, that they decided to press charges... talk about a moral high ground here.
Re:On extradition (Score:4, Informative)
Waking up woman with foreplay is not the same a fucking a passed out drunk woman.
These women only screamed rape when they found out about each other.
It's kind of like the old joke "I'm sorry miss, this $20 bill is counterfeit. Oh my god, I've been raped."
Re:Sorry for your decision Julian (Score:5, Informative)
(i am a spaniard) Sorry for assange he better get more lawyers or at least ones with better work history. Garzon directly asked for money to the owner of the bank he was judging for his conferences in the US (http://diariorc.com/?p=6950)
This isn't true and has been disproven already.
Garzon is accused by one spanish counter terrorist (whichever trust this might have) of hiding the real person in charge of spanish inmoral and illegal war against terrorism
Uh? If you are referring to GAL, anyone who can prove anything can go to another judge. Saying that this particular judge, who discovered *the whole thing* decided to keep the GAL boss hidden is absurd.
, by this time he became for some time a politician affiliated to the political party who was accused of supporting this death squadron.
Get your facts straight. He was brought on board by PSOE to fight corruption, he wasn't allowed to apparently and he left quite quickly and went back to his judicial career. of course when he did this he became the enemy of many in PSOE (left wing party in Spain for those who don't know). He already had lots of enemies in PP (right wing party).
Garzon was accused of not investigating a possible crime commited by the army and police minister or someone close of aborting a terrorist raid agains them ....mmmm many things to make me wonder if this is the only lawyer assange should have.
Link?
Strong Laws Present! (Score:5, Informative)
What evidence do you have to support your rather strange claims about Scandinavian law? Your claims are not in line with books or scholars on the subject. What are your credentials?
As a Scandinavian lawyer I have to disagree with your frankly unfounded claims on the basis of our legal history. Our law is built on the foundations of both Roman (Code Civil) and German (BGB) law. If that's not solid and strong then nothing is! Most countries in the world have similar foundations - with the exception of the former British colonies and some Muslim countries (mixed).
In modern times our laws have absolutely been constantly maintained and expanded with new laws from both national, regional and European sources. You do realize all the Scandinavian countries are subject to both the Council of Europe and EU law (either directly or indirectly)? According to most ratings, reviews and analysis human rights are better protected in Scandinavia than in the UK or US.
You are either ignorant or lying when you claim that Sweden or any other Scandinavian country would extradite a person to the US more easily. The US has been denied their own citizens on the basis that even US prisons are not satisfactory in terms of human rights according to our courts! The threat of the death penalty means a whole lot more to civilized countries where it's already illegal. It's also illegal under our laws to extradite if there's even the slightest chance that he could receive capital punishment! I can refer you to countless cases and verdicts.