Probe shows Garzón's finances are squeaky clean

A probe into the finances of the internationally acclaimed Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, who faces being barred from the profession because of a number of legal fronts opened by his domestic detractors, has found nothing untoward.

The investigation of Garzón's bank accounts by the Civil Guard's economic crime squad ordered by the Supreme Court in fact found the judge had declared to the tax authorities payments by check he had received for lectures that he had cashed and which do not appear in his accounts.

However, the information derived from the probe will be made available to his accusers who can make use of it to attack him in public and to ask for other investigations to be carried out, thereby, delaying his case coming to court.

Garzón has been temporarily suspended from duty pending the outcome of accusations that he exceeded his remit in opening an investigation into human rights crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War. It is also claimed he ordered illegal wire taps in the ongoing Gürtel political corruption case and received illicit payments for helping to set up a series of lectures he gave in the United States.

Garzón came to the attention of the international media in 1998 when he ordered an arrest warrant against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.