Spanish judge opens new Guantanamo probe

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A Spanish judge yesterday opened a new investigation into alleged torture at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a copy of the ruling seen by AFP.

Judge Baltasar Garzon would probe the "perpetrators, the instigators, the necessary collaborators and accomplices" to crimes of torture at the prison at the US naval base in southern Cuba, it said.

The judge based his decision on statements by Hamed Abderrahman Ahmed, known as the "Spanish Taliban" and three other former Guantanamo detainees – a Moroccan, a Palestinian and a Libyan – who alleged they had suffered torture at the camp.

"It seems that the documents declassified by the US administration mentioned by the media have revealed what was previously a suspicion – the existence of an authorised and systematic programme of torture" at Guantanamo and other prisons including that in Bagram in Afghanistan, Garzon said.

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