In issuing the writ for the inquiry, Judge Garzon indicated that the recently released OLC memoranda "reveal what had been just an intuition: an authorized and systematic plan of torture and mistreatment of person denied freedom without any charge whatsoever and without the rights enjoyed by any detainee." The targets of the probe include: "perpetrators, instigators, necessary collaborators and accomplices' of what was referred to as systematic torture.

Likely the Obama Administration will seek dismissal of this inquiry, said to be based upon the law of Spain with allegedly allows for the investigation of human rights violations around the world. Previously, and for years, it was Garzón who had sought the extradition of Augusto Pinochet for human rights violations.

This is a short diary, but this story is just developing.

UPDATE:

Philippe Sands, an attorney specializing in international law, and author of The Torture Team is currently on Fresh Air explaining this investigation. According to his sources the targets of this investigation include Condoleeza Rice and Richard B. Cheney, What is likely to happen net is for the investigation to proceed, if unappealed, a court date will be set, and the targets will be advised to appear. Garzón may then issue an arrest warrant that will be valid, at least in Spain, but possibly other countries.

Extradition by the Obama Administration, of course, is highly unlikely.

He is also in the process of strongly rebutting the publicly stated arguments of Steven Haynes and Jay Bybee, including the call to have Bybee removed from the bench. He calls Bybee's statements of last evening are "shocking."

[UPDATE 2]

Scott Horton, writing at The Daily Beast, reports further that:

Now, Garzón has announced a preliminary criminal inquiry into the Bush administration torture policy, specifying the evidence that a crime had been perpetrated against Spanish subjects, but not yet specifying the specific targets of the investigation. Judge Garzón’s decision revealed a deep engagement with documents which had been released in Washington in the last two weeks, particularly a group of memoranda prepared by lawyers in the Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) a report of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a memo released by the Senate Intelligence Committee, making it likely that he would focus on the authors of the torture memoranda and other lawyers who worked with them. [...] Garzon’s investigation focuses on charges of conspiracy to introduce and implement a regime of torture at the detention facilities at Guantánamo in Cuba, where five prisoners investigated by Garzón were held. Four of the prisoners have now filed claims with Garzón in which they press charges that they were tortured during their captivity and their claims were validated at least to some extent by a ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court in June 2006 which overturned a conviction on the grounds that it was secured with evidence gathered through torture. The case has been pending since the time of their turnover from U.S. authorities with Judge Garzón, who has attempted to prosecute the five under counter-terrorism statutes. Garzón is also seeking to have the criminal complaint of a Spanish human rights organization against the Bush Six—six top Bush administration officials—recently reassigned by the chief judge of the Audiencia Nacional to Judge Eloy Velasco, referred back to him for purposes of consolidation with his new preliminary investigation.

Note the article well. The procedural history here is a bit complex, but it explains why are are at this point.

Note, too, that the article concludes with a statement from an unidentified lawyer who validates the assertion made in comments to this diary (and thus my reason for posting it in the first place) that: