Juan Garcés

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Juan Garcés (* 1944 in Llíria ) is a Spanish lawyer . From 1970 to 1973 he worked as an advisor to the Chilean President Salvador Allende Gossens . During the 1973 coup against Allende , Garcés was also in the bombed presidential palace. Currently (May 2005) he teaches at the University of the Sorbonne and is on the board of the Fundación Presidente Allende (President Allende Foundation) based in Madrid .

Career

Garcés received the 1999 Right Livelihood Award for his efforts to bring the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to court in Spain . As a lawyer, Garcés represented the relatives of 35 people " disappeared " in Chile in court. The disappeared people were unexpectedly picked up by the police without notifying their relatives, and in many cases they were tortured and murdered. Garcés charged Pinochet with 35 counts of torture and conspiracy to torture.

In 1996 Garcés filed a civil lawsuit against Pinochet. When he learned in 1998 that Pinochet was in London , he convinced the Spanish judge Guzman to initiate criminal extradition proceedings. Pinochet was held in extradition detention in Great Britain for several months before he was allowed to travel to Chile for health reasons.

The lawsuit was made possible by a change in the law in Spain, according to which politicians can also be indicted outside their home countries. A fact that is particularly important because these politicians often go unpunished for reasons of political opportunity, even after proven criminal offenses in their home country. In Chile, for example, Pinochet was granted amnesty before handing over power to a democratic government. The lawsuits served as an important argument for the Chilean judiciary in their own indictment against the former dictator.

In addition to Pinochet himself, Garcés sued Riggs Bank in 2004 , which helped Pinochet to steal approximately $ 10 million from Chilean national assets and whose board of directors is Jonathan Bush . With her, Garcés and relatives reached an out-of-court settlement on a payment of USD 8 million to the Spanish Salvador Allende Foundation, which was to be distributed to victims of the Pinochet regime.

Following the lawsuit in Spain, Pinochet was also successfully indicted in France , Belgium , Switzerland and Argentina . Garcés himself said of the Right Livelihood Award: The award is not for me alone, it is for everyone who worked on the Pinochet case and for everyone who is committed to the right to life and against torture ... also legal Instances from other countries investigating various facets of other crimes .

Publications

  • The Pinochet Case: Law and Sovereignty, Politics and Crime

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Juan Garcés (Spain) ( Memento of the original dated November 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on rightlivelihood.org; Retrieved December 19, 2010  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rightlivelihood.org
personal data
SURNAME Garcés, Juan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish lawyer and winner of the alternative Nobel Prize
DATE OF BIRTH 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Llíria