Spain takes lead in charging bin Laden

A Spanish judge gave the world pause last month when he filed the first indictments against Osama bin Laden in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Spain wasn't the first country that came to mind for most newswatchers when thinking of the attacks. But investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon set out a good case for why Spain had grounds to file these charges of membership in a terrorist organization and "as many crimes of terrorist murder ... as there were dead and injured" in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Bin Laden and 34 others also are charged with weapons possession, tax fraud and forgery

Terrorism is included in Spain's universal justice law, meaning crimes against humanity can be adjudicated there even if committed in the United States. Garzon has tried to use the same law to prosecute human rights violations committed in Chile and Argentina.

The Sept. 11 terrorists used Spain to stage their attacks. Pilot Mohamed Atta, who died in a terrorist plane crash and is suspected as being the ringleader, visited Spain in July 2001 and is believed to have held a planning meeting with other participants in Tarragona.

The indictments are against people suspected of setting up al-Qaida networks in Spain and throughout Europe and financing those groups. Garzon said the details of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were finalized in his country.

And finally, at least one Spaniard died in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Still, it makes one wonder why the United States didn't indict bin Laden first. The only person charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States is Zacarias Moussaoui.

The simple answer: bin Laden already is charged in an indictment returned by a grand jury in New York after the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In addition, should the thousands of soldiers and informants looking for bin Laden find him, the U.S. believes they can hold him under the Defense Department's authority to detain enemy combatants.

And, while the United States apparently didn't encourage anyone in Spain to bring an indictment against bin Laden, information sharing on al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks between the United States and its European allies may have been used to build the case in Spain.

Legal experts say that Spain's indictment is legal. An international justice expert with Human Rights Watch in New York said no country "has a monopoly on the right to bring bin Laden to justice."

And while a professor for international criminal justice at American University in Washington said there is a danger in too many countries indicting bin Laden -- piecemeal trials around the world may not bring the most appropriate justice for the crime -- he sees benefits to expanding "the reach of justice."

The most important issue is to catch bin Laden so he can face his accusers and the penalty for killing nearly 3,000 people in one deadly attack.