Spanish Court Issues Arrest Warrants for Ex-Chinese Leaders

Orders Follow Eight-Year Probe into Human Rights Abuses in Tibet. Jiang Zemin and Other Officials Could Face Arrest if They Travel to Spain or Other Countries that Have an Extradition Treaty with Spain.
By MATT MOFFETT

The Wild Bunch : Wanted for genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism.

MADRID—Spain's national court, acting on a suit filed by Spanish Tibet groups, issued arrest warrants for former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and four other top authorities as part of an investigation into human rights abuses in Tibet.

The arrest orders follow an eight-year investigation, launched by the court on the basis of a principle known as universal jurisdiction, claiming that China had committed genocide in Tibet. 

The court said there was sufficient evidence against the five officials to have them appear for questioning.

The court orders means the former Chinese leader and other officials could face arrest if they travel to Spain or other countries that have an extradition treaty with Spain. 

Legal experts said that there was a highly remote possibility of the warrants ever actually being executed but that the ruling would have symbolic impact in casting a further spotlight on human-rights issues in Tibet.
Besides Jiang Zemin, warrants were issued for former Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng; Qiao Shi, a longtime police and intelligence official; Chen Kuiyan, ex-Communist Party secretary in Tibet; and Peng Peiyun, China's former minister of family planning. 

The court said it issued the warrants based on the "existence of signs of participation" in abuses "given the political or military responsibility of each one of them during the long period in which the facts that are under investigation occurred."
At a daily press briefing on Wednesday, China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Beijing was seeking clarity from Spain on the matter. 

Alan Cantos, president of the Tibet Support Committee, a Spanish nongovernmental group that was one of the plaintiffs, hailed the news of the warrants. 

He said the decision was significant "in terms of the truth coming out and winning a little bit of justice and accountability where there had been total impunity."
The suit had accused Chinese officials of conducting "generalized and systematic" oppression against the population of Tibet. 

Among the witnesses who appeared before the national court was American doctor Blake Kerr, who had told the court about forced sterilizations and abortions he said he had seen working in Tibet.
The penchant of Spanish courts to aggressively pursue international human rights cases has won them plaudits from rights activists.

Spanish investigative judge Baltasar Garzón gained fame in 1998 when he ordered the arrest in London of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was detained there for a year and a half before being released. 

Spanish courts have also involved themselves in other human-rights cases from Rwanda to Iraq.
A few years ago, Spain's government, frustrated by the diplomatic problems that its judges were causing, tried to limit their reach by imposing a requirement that there must be a clear Spanish connection for local courts to get involved.

The Tibet matter fit the new requirement because one of the plaintiffs, Tibet-born Thubten Wangchen Sherpa Sherpa, is a naturalized Spanish citizen.