Agence France Presse, December 1 – A top Spanish judge is considering launching a probe into a raid by Iraqi police and soldiers on a camp for Iranian refugees in July that killed 11 people, according to a court document released Tuesday.
National Audience judge Fernando Andreu has accepted a complaint filed by family members of residents of Camp Ashraf under the legal doctrine known as "universal jurisdiction" which allows grave human rights crimes to be prosecuted in Spain.
Spain in October approved a law limiting the application of the doctrine to cases where there is a clear link to Spain after investigations into alleged human rights abuses involving other nations like China and Israel caused diplomatic headaches for Madrid.
Andreu acknowledged in his ruling that the case has no link to Spain but he deemed himself competent to investigate it, arguing that it could violate the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the humanitarian protection of civilians in war zones.
The judge has asked Iraqi authorities whether they are investigating the deaths at the camp located 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Iranian border and if they are he will close the case file.
He reached the ruling on November 26 but the court only released it on Tuesday.
The complaint filed by the family members alleges that Iraqi police and soldiers shot and beat residents of the camp in an attempt to clear the area and build a police station there.
Iraqi authorities blamed the violence on rioting by the refugees at the camp, which housed thousands of members of the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin Khalq for two decades.
