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Spain: ECHR - torture claims not effectively investigated

01 November 2004

On 2 November 2004, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg found that the Spanish authorities failed to effectively investigate allegations made by 15 members of Terra Lliure, an armed Catalan group that carried out a campaign for independence involving small-scale bombings against banks and other businesses between 1979 and 1991, that they were tortured in the Guardia Civil headquarters in Madrid following their arrest in July 1992. Spain was ordered to pay 8,000 euros compensation to each of the plaintiffs, six of whom were convicted in 1995 of links to an illegal armed group, possession of weapons and terrorism. They told a judge in Madrid in 1992 about the torture and their case before the European Court of Human Rights began in November 2003, with the lawyer Sebastiá Salellas accusing the Spanish courts of "refusing to investigate the incidents of 1992, under the control of Judge (Baltasar) Garzón" of the Audiencia Nacional.

The Strasbourg court noted that Garzón's report on the claims only made reference to "physical ill-treatment, without excluding the possibility of psychological ill-treatment". Spain was found to have violated Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which prohibits torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. It was cleared of torture because the allegations "were not sufficiently supported by the evidence submitted to the court".

EFE, Expatica, 3.11.04; El País 19.11.03, 29.1, 3.11.04