Garzon cleared of Franco deaths probe

THE Supreme Court has acquitted Baltasar Garzon of violating a 1977 amnesty by attempting to investigate Franco-era deaths.

The prosecuting parties were far-right groups who accused Garzon of overstepping his powers by opening in 2008 an investigation into the disappearance of 113,000 people during the Civil War and subsequent dictatorship.

It was the third charge being faced by the controversial ‘superjudge’, who three weeks ago was found guilty of illegal phone tapping and banned from the bench for 11 years – effectively putting an end to his judicial career.

Garzon, 56, is best known worldwide for helping to secure the arrest of former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet in London in 1998.

To discover more about Garzon, see our feature Where justice meets farce: Garzon, the Spanish ‘superjudge’