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Spanish judge, hero to many, is on trial for ordering wiretap

Spanish law fuzzy; even prosecutors don’t like the case

By Daniel Woolls

 |  Associated Press  

  January 18, 2012

The Spanish judge who became an international human rights hero by indicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet denied any wrongdoing as he went on trial yesterday over his handling of a domestic corruption probe in a case that could end his career. The once high-flying Baltasar Garzon, taking the stand as a criminal defendant at Spain’s Supreme Court, is charged with knowingly overstepping his jurisdiction by ordering wiretaps of jailhouse conversations between detainees and their lawyers. Such bugging is allowed specifically in terrorism cases, but in non-terror affairs Spanish law is fuzzier.

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