Spain forced to drop inquiry into 2003 killing of cameraman by US shell in Iraq

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/09/spain-jose-cousco-cameraman-us-military-iraq

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Spain’s high court has closed a 12-year inquiry into the killing of a TV cameraman by a US tank shell in Iraq in 2003, after the judge concluded a change in Spanish law made the case impossible to pursue.

Spanish judicial authorities had sought the arrest and questioning of three US soldiers accused of involvement in the death of José Couso, who worked for the Telecinco television station. Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian, was also killed by the shell that crashed into a Baghdad hotel.

Couso’s family filed a lawsuit in 2003 against Captain Philip Wolford, Lieutenant Colonel Philip de Camp and Sergeant Gibson, all of the US 3rd infantry.

The Spanish high court had sought to detain the men using universal justice, the concept that some crimes such as genocide and torture are so serious they can be prosecuted across borders.

The law, pioneered by Spain, famously led to the detention in London of Chilean former dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 through an arrest warrant issued from Spain.

However, Spain’s centre-right government last year curbed the powers of judges to prosecute human rights cases across borders using the law after countries like China bristled at Spanish judicial investigations into crimes like alleged genocide by former Chinese officials in Tibet.

Reforms to the law made it impossible to prosecute any war crime carried out against a Spaniard unless the accused had sought refuge in Spain, high court judge Santiago Pedraz said in the court document seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

Pedraz said last year it had been impossible to bring the US soldiers to Spain to get them to testify in a Spanish court. The three men had been cleared of wrongdoing by a US military investigation. The US said it would not extradite the three.