Garzón in the dock as Gürtel wiretaps trial begins

High Court Judge Baltasar Garzón went on trial Tuesday on criminal charges that he illegally ordered surveillance recordings of conversations between jailed defendants - who allegedly took part in a massive government kickbacks-for-contracts scheme - and their defense lawyers.

Garzón, who became internationally famous in 1998 after issuing an arrest warrant for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, could be barred from the bench for a period of 10 to 17 years if he is found guilty. It is the first time in modern Spanish history that a judge has been tried for ordering phone taps.

The charges were brought before the Supreme Court by the defendants in the so-called Gürtel public corruption case, which has ensnared various Popular Party (PP) officials in local government in Madrid, Castilla-La Mancha and Valencia.

Garzón was handling the case in February 2009 when he ordered the arrest of alleged Gürtel ringleader Francisco Correa, his principal accomplice Pablo Crespo and around two dozen others on charges that they paid some seven million euros in bribes in exchange for juicy contracts with the various PP governments. Gürtel means "belt" in German, as does "correa" in Spanish, and was thus used as the secret code word for the investigation.

The judge ordered the jail house conversations to be taped because he suspected that the lawyers were helping their clients to engage in a cover-up.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition filed by Garzón's lawyer, Francisco Baena Bocanegra, to recuse two justices from the trial - Luciano Varela and Manuel Marchena - on the grounds of alleged impartiality throughout the top court's preliminary investigation.

Even though many of the recordings were thrown out as evidence in the Gürtel inquiry by the Supreme Court, they were backed by the judge who took over the investigation from Garzón, Antonio Pedreira, and anti-corruption prosecutors. In one ruling handed down in January 2010, Pedreira said that there were clear indications that some of the Gürtel lawyers were participating in a cover-up to keep investigators from discovering "millions of euros" in overseas accounts.

Swiss investigators have uncovered some 24 million euros in bank accounts linked to Correa.

Garzón has refused to answer to the charges brought against him by the Supreme Court. This is only the first of three cases that the High Court judge is facing. Later this month, he will go to trial on charges that he overstepped his judicial duty by trying to open an investigation into crimes committed during the Francisco Franco dictatorship. The charges were brought against him by an obscure rightwing union, Manos Limpias, and the Spanish Falange de los JONS party.

Garzón is also named in another Supreme Court case for allegedly accepting money from Banco Santander for organizing a conference while he was on an official leave of absence from the High Court to study at New York University.