Baltasar Garzón

Baltasar Garzón Real (; born 26 October 1955) is a Spanish former judge in Spain's central criminal court, the ''Audiencia Nacional'' responsible for investigation the most serious criminal cases, including terrorism, organised crime, crimes against humanity, Illegal drug trade, money laundering and state terrorism.

Garzón came to international prominence in 1998 by having former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet arrested in London for extradition based on international human rights law. The judge had already become well known in Spain for investigating Basque separatist group ETA and for his probe into government death squads in the 1980s which is thought to have helped to bring down the Socialist government in 1996 elections. In 2005, as a result of Garzón´s indictment of a group of men (including Osama Bin Laden) for their alleged membership of a terrorist group, 24 were put on trial in Europe's biggest trial of alleged al-Qaeda operatives.

In 2009 Garzón made a controversial judgement that the acts of repression committed by the Franco regime were crimes against humanity.

In 2010, Garzón was suspended from judicial activity and in 2012 he was convicted of willful abuse of power and disbarred for a period of 11 years. The trials and convictions were condemned internationally including by the International Commission of Jurists and the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the basis that the case was arbitrary and did not comply with the principles of judicial independence and impartiality and violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

After 2012, Garzón has held many positions including as director of the legal defense of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange; as an advisor to the International Criminal Court; in Argentina as director of international advice at the Secretariat of Human Rights of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights; in Colombia, he advised the Attorney General's Office; and in Ecuador, he was appointed coordinator of the International Oversight Committee on Justice Reform.

Garzón holds honorary doctorates from twenty-two universities around the world and numerous prizes. Provided by Wikipedia