Spain tells U.N. no rethink on post-Franco amnesty

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Spain tells U.N. no rethink on post-Franco amnesty
Source: Reuters - Wed, 6 Nov 2013 08:07 PM

* Spain rejects idea of inquiry into Civil War "disappeared"

* Pressure for review growing from families and NGOs

* 150,000-200,000 civilians said to have been killed under Franco

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Spain told a critical United Nations panel on Wednesday that a 1978 amnesty for political crimes committed during the 1936-39 civil war and the right-wing dictatorship of Francisco Franco would not be reviewed, despite growing calls for a rethink.

Spanish officials were testifying before the U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances two days after Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon and human rights groups urged the committee to tell Spain it was legally bound to re-examine the period.

"The moves undertaken by the Spanish state in 1978 will not be revisited," Spain's ambassador in Geneva, Ana Menendez Perez, told the panel of 11 independent legal experts.

Garzon says at least 152,000 civilians disappeared, presumably killed, behind the lines of Franco's Nationalist forces during the civil war and then in the first 12 years of Franco's rule, up to 1951.


Read more: http://www.trust.org/item/20131106195557-9v96k/?source=search

[BillyRibs]

1. same as it

ever was.