Baltasar Garzón is a Spanish investigating judge who has handled several high-profile cases involving drug trafficking, corruption, and terrorist groups. As an investigating judge for Spain's National Court, his role is to gather evidence in assigned cases to determine if they should go to trial. Notable among his cases was his indictment of Augusto Pinochet and other leaders of Chile's former military junta for crimes of genocide, terrorism, and torture. Garzón also played a key role in indicting suspected Basque terrorists through disbanding organizations and closing media outlets tied to the separatist group ETA.

1. Baltasar Garzón
Spanish investigating judge
Baltasar Garzón was born in 1955 in Villa de Torres (Jaén), in southern Spain. He became a provincial judge at 23, and joined
the National Court at age 32.
Garzón is one of six investigating judges for Spain's National Court. His function is to investigate the cases that
are assigned to him by the court, gathering evidence and evaluating whether the case should be brought to trial.
He does not try the cases himself.
In 1993, Garzón took leave of absence to run for a seat in Spanish parliament on the socialist ticket. Garzón,
whose piping voice belies his thick-shouldered build, turned out to be a poor public speaker, but his support
proved useful for the socialists. Garzón won a seat, but it soon became obvious that the embattled socialist party
had taken him on board mainly as window dressing, and he quit politics and returned to his former post a year
after the election, perhaps disillusioned at the socialists' failure to implement promised reforms, although
according to some reports he was miffed because he was not chosen for Justice Minister.
As investigating magistrate he has been in charge of some of Spain's high-profile cases, involving drug
trafficking, corruption in high places, the Basque terrorist group ETA, and the GAL, the shady hit-squad set up
by officials within the government to fight a dirty war against the Basque separatists. As a result of this last case
several of Garzón's former political allies ended up in jail.
Garzón rose to prominence as an international figure with his indictment of leaders of the former Chilean
military junta, including the ailing dictator Augusto Pinochet, on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture
during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, following an invetigation assigned to him by Spain's National Court. He
issued an international arrest warrant when he learned that Pinochet was in London for a medical check-up.
British police arrested Pinochet in October 1998. Pinochet was held under house arrest in London, pending a
decision on his extradition to Spain, until March 2000, when the British Foreign Minister decided to release him
because the dictator was deemed unfit to stand trial.
Garzón has also played a key role in indicting suspected Basque terrorists. In May 1998, he disbanded KAS
(Koordinora Arbetzale Sozialista), an association of indepedence groups, on the grounds that it was in fact a
strategic arm of the ETA organization. Two months later he closed down the newspaper, Egin, regarded as the
mouthpiece for ETA, a move which raised questions concerning press freedom in Spain. In September 2000, in
an operation involving 300 policemen, he ordered the arrest of members of Ekin, an organization seen as the
successor of KAS.