Spanish judge agrees to look into human rights violations in Tindouf camps

Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzon, who became renowned after the Chilean dictator Pinochet's case, said he was ready to examine the case of human rights violations in the Tindouf camps (stronghold of the Polisario in southwestern Algeria).

According to the daily "Asharq Al-Awsat," the attorney who was behind the arrest warrant against Pinochet in 1998 in London, has promised to study the case, submitted by the association of the Polisario prisons survivors, before starting judiciary procedure to bring before justice the Spain-based Polisario leaders.

The daily says the association, supported by the Dutch bar and a Belgian judiciary expertise office, has managed to convince the Spanish judge to study the case of the death of 100 persons under torture in the Polisario camps.

The association, set up in 19958, had called in 1995 the UN secretary general to strive to clarify the fate of missing persons in the camps.