Nation & World

MADRID — Spain's Supreme Court on Thursday convicted the crusading human-rights judge Baltasar Garzón of illegally ordering wiretapping in a corruption case and suspended him from the courts for 11 years.

His lawyer told EFE, the Spanish news agency, that Garzón, 56, felt an understandable "desolation and pain" in being barred from the judiciary, to which he had dedicated his life.

Hours after the verdict, hundreds of Garzón supporters braved freezing weather in Madrid's central Sol plaza shouting "Shame! Shame!" in protest.

The ruling came in one of three cases against Garzón, the country's most prominent — and contentious — judicial personality, who has made aggressive use of the doctrine of universal jurisdiction for grave human-rights crimes.

He gained fame in 1998, when Chile's former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet was arrested in a London hospital on a warrant issued by Garzón. Though Pinochet, then 82, was judged too ill to be tried, the episode was a major step in the emergence of cross-border justice. Garzón also indicted Osama bin Laden in 2003 over the Sept. 11 attacks.

Garzón's spirit of activism has also antagonized some Spanish authorities and critics who consider him self-aggrandizing. He dug deeply into corruption cases and ordered an inquiry into atrocities committed during the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, despite a 1977 general amnesty for crimes perpetrated during the war. That 2008 investigation, closed after just a month, prompted the second case against Garzón, as fringe far-right groups argued that he had overstepped his authority. Conviction could result in a 20-year suspension.

The 7-0 ruling in Thursday's case came in a 2008 corruption case in which Garzón ordered wiretaps to monitor conversations between lawyers and their clients. The judge argued that such taps were needed to ensure that the main defendants would not be able to transfer money garnered from their corrupt business dealings while held in jail under investigation.

In the case brought by the defendants who had been monitored, the Supreme Court ruled that such an order contravened defense rights and "damaged the right to confidentiality."

There is no avenue to appeal, but Garzón could challenge the validity of the judicial process before Spain's Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, according to his lawyer, Francisco Baena Bocanegra.

The Strasbourg court could find that the Spanish court violated his rights and ask for a remedy.

The verdict came despite declarations by Spanish prosecutors that Garzón committed no crime. In a quirk of Spanish law, people can seek criminal charges even if prosecutors disagree.

Philippe Sands, who teaches international law at University College London, expressed concern over the process.

"This is very troubling; targeting an independent judge or prosecutor through the criminal-justice system anywhere raises very serious concerns," he said. "To bring down the criminal-justice system on an investigative judge for an alleged fault is to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It's almost unique in Europe."

Garzón's defenders, including international lawyers, judges, academics and human-rights groups, have called the cases politically motivated. On Thursday, many denounced the ruling.

Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch who has been monitoring the trials, said the "accumulation of the cases against Judge Garzón" suggested "reprisal for his past actions against vested interests."

"Unfortunately," he added, "it certainly looks like his enemies now got what they wanted."

Garzón has a pending case in Strasbourg filed last March regarding the case involving the Franco era, arguing that he was within bounds to order an investigation because such crimes cannot be pardoned by an amnesty.

He faces more legal woes in Spain from a third case, a probe that could see him indicted over ties with a big Spanish bank that financed human-rights seminars he oversaw while on sabbatical in New York in 2005 and 2006.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.