Amnesty in Call for Civil War Justice

Spain must provide justice for tens of thousands of people killed by General Franco's death squads during and after the Spanish civil war, Amnesty International said yesterday.

The human rights organisation urged the Spanish government to end the impunity enjoyed by those who carried out crimes on behalf of Franco's 36-year dictatorship.

"Instead of truth about the crimes of the past, its place has been filled with silence and in some cases denial, in the absence of an exhaustive and impartial investigation," it said in a special report.

Amnesty's appeal came 30 years after Franco's death and as the Socialist government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero studies measures to recognise and compensate victims.

It also urged the creation of a truth commission or an equivalent body to investigate atrocities by both sides during the war.

Thousands of death sentences handed down to people, including many civilians, by Franco's kangaroo military courts, should also be annulled, the report said.

It said the courts had in recent years turned their backs on people who asked for help to locate or dig up mass graves where relatives shot during or after the war may be buried. A prosecutor should be appointed to help them.