The Spanish judge who went after Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998 has now set his sights on former members of the Bush administration, arguing that they violated international law by justifying the use of torture against suspected terrorists. Judge Baltasar Garzón of Spain, whose international reputation for going after prominent human rights violators includes issuing the warrant for Pinochet’s arrest in Great Britain, has recommended to prosecutors that a case be brought against six U.S. officials for actions that violated the Geneva Conventions and the 1984 Convention Against Torture.

The officials named in the current case are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, chief of staff for former Vice President Dick Cheney; former undersecretary of defense Douglas Feith; William Haynes, who was the Pentagon’s general counsel; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, both former senior Justice Department legal advisers.

A similar case was brought before Germany’s federal prosecutor in November 2006 to pursue a case against then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Gonzales and other officials for abuses committed in Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. But the prosecutor there declined on the grounds that the issue should be investigated in the U.S.

Legal observers say the Spanish lawsuit has a better chance of moving ahead. The high court in Spain has more leeway than the German prosecutor to seek “universal jurisdiction.” Furthermore, the current lawsuit also has a direct link to Spanish citizens, six of whom who were held at Guantánamo.

If arrests warrants are issued for the former Bush administration officials, President Barack Obama will have to decide whether to comply with an extradition order to send them to Spain. It is unlikely that Obama would agree to such a move. But even if he doesn’t agreed to extradition, the six men would have to remain in the United States, or run the risk of being arrested in another country that would turn them over to Spain.

After Garzón asked for Pinochet’s extradition from Great Britain, the UK government detained the former Chilean dictator for more than a year and then denied the request on the grounds that Pinochet was in poor health.

-Noel Brinkerhoff