Crusading Spain judge Garzon himself a defendant

Baltasar Garzon — who sought to prosecute former Chilean dictator Pinochet— is to be tried on charges that he overstepped by opening an investigation into Spanish Civil War atrocities.

Reporting from Madrid —

Is it a horrible irony or poetic justice?

For years, Baltasar Garzon has been Spain's most controversial crusader, a judge on a mission to fight whatever he thinks is an abuse of power wherever he sees it happening. He has used his courtroom here in Madrid to investigate allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to indict Osama bin Laden and, most famously, to go after former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

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