Spain High Court Halts Civil War Probe

Prosecutors say the High Court has no jurisdiction over the crimes, which should be dealt with by relevant regional courts.

Spain's High Court on Friday ordered a halt to an investigation into the killing of thousands of people in the 1936-39 civil war while it determines if such crimes are closed under a 1977 amnesty law.

Prosecutors had requested the move after Judge Baltazar Garzon had opened a case to locate, exhume and identify the remains of victims, many of whom lie in mass graves after being summarily shot.

The court said in a statement that exhumations and other activities should halt, unless doing so would cause irreversible damage to the investigation.

Garzon, who became well known in 1998 when he tried to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, has said that he was investigating crimes against humanity, which are not covered by the amnesty law.

Prosecutors say the High Court has no jurisdiction over the crimes, which should be dealt with by relevant regional courts.

The judge wants relatives to know the circumstances of the victims' deaths, in what campaigners see as a step towards healing wounds from a conflict which remains divisive.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Spain's civil war, which started with a military coup led by General Francisco Franco against a democratically elected government.

Franco won the war and ruled Spain until his death in 1975, after which the country swiftly became a modern, prosperous democracy and joined the European Union.

In September, church and human rights groups gave Garzon details of more than 130,000 people who vanished in the war.

He later ordered the opening of 19 graves, including that of Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain's most famous modern poet and playwright, who was shot by Franco's forces in 1936.