Spain court quashes corruption case against judge

Spain's Supreme Court on Monday quashed a bribe-taking case against human rights judge Baltasar Garzon, who was last week barred from the judiciary for 11 years for abuse of power. The court ruled that a three-year statute of limitations had passed in the case, said a copy of the ruling. Garzon was accused of soliciting sponsorship payments for lectures he gave in New York in 2005 and 2006 from banks that had faced charges in his own courtoom or other courtrooms in the National Court. The Supreme Court found there was evidence of a crime but ruled the statute of limitations had passed because the last payment was received on May 17, 2006, more than three years before he was charged. "Opening a hearing is not pertinent. It is agreed that the facts charged against Baltasar Garzon Real are shelved because of the statute of limitations," the ruling said. The judgement landed just four days after Garzon, 56, was criminally convicted for ordering wiretaps in a corruption probe, a decision criticised by his supporters as a political stitch-up. Spain's Supreme Court suspended him from the judiciary for 11 years, crushing the career of a man who championed rights cases worldwide, most famously by trying to extradite Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet. The judge is still awaiting a verdict in a more prominent trial in which he is accused of trying to investigate Franco-era atrocities in an alleged breach of an amnesty. Garzon argues the acts, including thousands of forced disappearances during the Civil War and General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, were crimes against humanity and not subject to an amnesty. His defenders argue that all three cases are a form of revenge by the many enemies he has made.