Global eye opening about the shadowy reality of Spanish maverick judge Baltasar Garzón

This guy, who lead much of the worst repression against Basques and our most basic liberties, may be known to you because he is the defense attorney of Wikileaks leader Julian Assange or because he once made a futile attempt to bring Chilean dictator Pinochet to trial, embarrassing Great Britain.

But, in spite of being a character well worth of an intrigue novel or film, Garzón is essentially a hypocrite and a repressor, clearly aligned with the worst of Spanish and global elites.

Argentines are discovering it now and have dedicated a whole blog with plenty material on his person, to uncover the dark truth of Garzón. The materials are so far only available in Spanish, but they are interesting enough to teach me something new about this human worm and therefore to share here at least in outline form. 

Garzón was paid by multinational corporations to teach "anti-terrorism", he paid back in legal favors

→ article[es].

This is one of the items I did not know about beforehand. Spanish multinational companies CEPSA, Banco Santander, BBVA, Telefónica, Endesa and Unión Fenosa, paid Garzón €1 million to give a course on "international terrorism", along with such elements as Condi Rice, John Negroponte, Thimothy Geithner, Michael Chertoff, Michael Bloomberg, Rodrigo Rato, José Manuel Insulza (OAS) and Arthur Shulzberg (NYT).

The case was known publicly because in the 2010 revenge legal action taken against him by his own colleagues, it became apparent that he may have paid back Banco Santander by dismissing a case against them. 

The presence of so many US VIPs in Garzón courses was arranged by Banco Santander as well, on request of the maverick Spanish judge. 

The article links to a number of documents backing this case of cronyism.

Garzón used illegal wiretapping to hinder the investigation of the Gürtel corruption affair of the Spanish conservatives

→ article[es].

When still a judge of the Audiencia Nacional (especial political tribunal of Spain), Garzón wiretapped conversations between those investigated and their attorneys in what seems a clear case of intentional muddying of the legal procedure to nullify the prosecution. 

His defense attorney in that case is, quite notably, the same one defending some of those accused in the Gürtel affair, Francisco Correa, who is also godfather of Garzón's son. 

Garzón actively supported state terrorism in Colombia

→ article[es].

He provided legal assessment for the whitewashing of the many horrible paramilitary terror crimes under Uribe and publicly backed the Colombian state attorney in this operation of criminal impunity. 

Garzón attacked Bolivarian Venezuela in connivance with the oligarchy

→ article[es].

After being hired as public relations by the Venezuelan capitalist syndicate CONINDUSTRIA, he backed the RCTV broadcasting corporation when the license it had was not renewed by the government.

He also wrote the foreword of the book by reactionary leader Enrique Capriles Radonski Estado Delincuente (Criminal State), dedicated to defame the Venezuelan democratic socialism. 

Garzón worked against truth and reparation in the case against victims of Fascism in Spain

→ article[es].

Some have imagined, thanks to media hype and half-truths that Garzón was some sort of "hero" in the demand of justice for the massive crimes of Fascism in Spain. But the reality is very different. 

Not just he brought the cases to his own court Audiencia Nacional, legally not competent, but he has admitted publicly that:

• He stopped opening burials of the victims of Fascism
• He did not make any actual investigation whatsoever

His activity of sabotage of the case for some 157,000 victims of Fascist terror, has been denounced by human rights associations.

Garzón was a key piece in the political repression and tortures against the Basque People as well as US kidnapping of Muslims

→ article 1 (torture) [es].

→ article 2 (closure of media)[es].

Well known here but maybe not as well abroad. Garzón, along with other Spanish judges, notably those in the Audiencia Nacional, protected systematic torture against political prisoners of all sorts, not just Basques, but also Catalans, etc.

He also dismissed systematically all denounces of torture.

Garzón was a centerpiece in the political repression that exploded in 1998 against the Basque People. His infamous case 18/98 established the legal frame of "everything is ETA", by which every other Basque entity, be it political, social, cultural or even the media, have been persecuted in the last 15 years. 

He closed newspaper Egin (To Do, an excellent medium with lots of investigative journalism and high quality information and opinion), radio station Egin Irratia and magazines Ardi Beltza (Black Sheep) and its successor Kale Gorria (Damned Street), dedicated exclusively to investigative journalism and, therefore, a threat of truth and transparency against the many corruptions of the Spanish and Basque oligarchies. 

Many of their journalists were jailed and sometimes tortured. A decade later the case was dismissed but the harm was already done. 

Garzón collaborated with the kidnapping and tortures of Muslims by the USA

→ article[es].

Even such a coy organization as Amnesty international denounced Garzón for his active complicity in the US operations of arbitrary kidnapping of Muslim suspects and transference to Guantanamo concentration camp and other secret prisons worldwide. 

In the case of the only Spaniard held in Guantanamo, Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed, Garzón was informed of the tortures suffered by this citizen but he preferred to bury the issue adhering to the doctrine of "all is Al Qaeda", by which every single Muslim is suspect and therefore, seemingly, unprotected by any law, much less this cynic.

Beware Julian, beware!