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Judge Velasco plans to continue investigating the murder of Ellacuría
The judges and prosecutors of the National Court who investigate cases that could be affected by the limitation of universal justice, which comes into effect this Saturday, are studying whether some of them could be saved from the archive by classification of the events as a crime of terrorism.
Another possibility that the magistrates and prosecutors of this court are considering is to raise constitutionality issue for this reform, either ex officio or after giving notice to the parties, Legal sources have informed Efe.
In this sense, The prosecutors of the National Court have already complained to the State Attorney General about this reform after its approval in Congress, by understanding that limits investigation of crimes, lo que podía ser "en cierta medida" unconstitutional.
The reform of the Organic Law of the Judiciary, which modifies the application of universal justice, introduces a transitional provision that allows the retroactive dismissal of open cases in the Spanish courts.
"Las causas que en el momento de entrada en vigor de esta Ley se encuentren en tramitación por los delitos a los que se hace referencia en la misma quedarán sobreseídas hasta que no se acredite el cumplimiento de los requisitos establecidos en ella", points out this precept of the reform.
Nevertheless, before decreeing those files, The central investigating judges of the National Court want to study if they can save any of them from this dismissal., giving before transfer to the parties so that they inform about it, what they won't do until Monday.
The murder of Ellacuría
For now, The only one who has taken a step in that direction has been the head of the Central Court of Instruction number 6, Eloy Velasco, regarding the case in which twenty Salvadoran soldiers have been prosecuted for the murder of six Jesuits, among them Ignacio Ellacuría, and two women, he 16 November 1989 in El Salvador, under accusations of terrorist murders and crimes against humanity.
Velasco has given today transfer to the parties to be informed about whether any of these crimes allow the case to be kept open after the reform and, if yes, announces that it will raise this matter to the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court to determine whether the trial held in El Salvador for these events was a law fraud, so it would not be considered that they have not been investigated.
The same would happen with the case in which Judge Pedraz is investigating the assault and burning of the Spanish embassy in Guatemala in 1980 by state security forces, what caused 37 muertos, although in this case because it is a Spanish installation, as well as with the kidnapping and murder of Spanish diplomat Carmelo Soria, occurred in 1976, in the middle of the Chilean military dictatorship, that Pablo Ruz investigates.
Something similar happens with the case against former senior Moroccan officials allegedly involved in the disappearance and murder of Sahrawis in 1975, given that it could be considered that the events occurred in Spanish territory and against Spanish citizens
Other causes that could be saved from the archive after the reform because the acts are classified as terrorism are those of genocide in Rwanda and the kidnappings at the hands of Al Qaeda of the Spanish aid workers in Mali Ainhoa Fernández and Enric Gonyalons and that of the journalist Marc Marginedas in Syria.
Except these cases, Next week the judges will begin to order the filing of the dozens of cases opened in the National Court in application of the principle of universal justice.
Among them, former Chinese leaders are accused of repression in Tibet or that which affects American military for the death of the Spanish cameraman José Couso in the Iraq war.
The same will happen with the one that refers to the persecution of Falun Gong in China or the attack on the Ashraf Iranian refugee camp., an Iraq.
Also in which Ruz investigates whether there was torture in the Guantánamo prison (Cuba) to four former prisoners, two of them with Spanish nationality, or in which Moreno requested the delivery of four members of the Nazi regime for crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity committed in the Mauthausen concentration camps, Sachsenhausen and Flossenbürg.
Some of these cases could be elevated to the International Criminal Court (TPI), among them that relating to the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
