Spanish court mulls US torture case

A Spanish court has agreed to consider charging six former members of the US administration over alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, The New York Times has reported.

The court would determine whether the officials, who served in the administration of George Bush, the former US president, violated international law by providing a legal justification for torture at the American prison camp in Cuba.

Baltasar Garzon, a leading Spanish judge, agreed to send the case on to prosecutors to decide whether it had merit, Gonzalo Boye, one of the lawyers who brought the charges, said.

Among those accused is Alberto Gonzales, the Bush-era attorney general, and David Addington, the former chief of staff to Dick Cheney, Bush's vice-president.

The other four are: Douglas Feith, the former undersecretary of defence for policy; John Yoo and Jay Bybee, two justice department officials; and William Haynes, a Pentagon lawyer.

"The charges as related to me make no sense," Feith said on Saturday.

"They criticise me for promoting a controversial position that I never advocated."

Yoo, who wrote a series of secret memos that claimed the president had the legal authority to circumvent the Geneva Conventions and who is already the subject of a justice department ethics investigation, declined to comment.