Baltasar Garzón cleared of bribery by Spanish supreme court

Spain's supreme court has thrown out bribery charges against the crusading human rights investigator Baltasar Garzón, days after he was disbarred as a magistrate for overstepping his authority while pursuing a politically charged corruption case. Garzónwas being investigated for allegations of corruption relating to sponsorship deals obtained by New York University for conferences he helped run while on sabbatical there. It was one of three separate cases allowed against him by the court in aflood of cases against the magistrate. The other two dealt with his investigation of the killing of 114,000 people under Franco and with the wire-tapping of conversations between remand prisoners and defence lawyers in a case involving the People's party of prime minister Mariano Rajoy. Garzón is still awaiting judgment on the former, and was barred for 11 years on the second case last week. Supreme court judge Manuel Marchena said on Monday that Garzón had not abused his powers by failing to rule himself out of dealing with a case involving one of the sponsors, the Santander bank. Marchena said Garzón had been wrong to accept jurisdiction in the case, but he had not made any unjust decisions as a result.