MADRID, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Human-rights advocates in Spain were fuming Wednesday over a judge's decision to end an investigation into Franco-era atrocities.
Judge Baltasar Garzon Tuesday dropped the probe and passed the case on to regional courts that have show little enthusiasm for the process of unearthing the graves of Franco's political enemies.
"It's a disgrace. We have teams of Spanish peacekeepers exhuming mass graves in Bosnia and yet we can't even deal with our own graves," Jose Maria Pedreno, president of the State Federation of Forums for Historical Memory, told The New York Times.
The Times said the investigation headed by Garzon would have been the first official national investigation into the deaths of some 114,000 people during Franco's fascist regime. Opening mass graves has been a job taken up by volunteer groups with no backing from the government.
Conservatives sharply criticized the investigation as unnecessarily stirring up trouble over crimes committed as long as 70 years ago.
Garzon said in a 152-page statement that he was dropping the probe amid questions from state prosecutors about his jurisdictional authority in the case.
