Spain's best-known judge, Baltasar Garzon, suffered an abrupt and dramatic end to his legal career when he was banned from his profession for 11 years for authorising illicit recordings of lawyers' conversations during a huge political corruption case. He has vowed to fight the ruling.
Garzon, who is well known for pursuing international human rights cases, is most famous for his attempt to extradite General Augusto Pinochet in 1998, which saw the former Chilean dictator detained for a year in Britain.
He also succeeded in putting Adolfo Scilingo, a notorious member of the 1970s Argentine junta, behind bars.
Yesterday's verdict, though, means Garzon's days as Spain's most intrepid legal watchdog are over. The 56-year-old was barred after his wiretaps in the so-called "Gurtel case" - a corruption scandal in which entrepreneurs were accused of paying off politicians from the ruling Partido Popular party in order to obtain regional government contracts - were described by the judges as "practices of totalitarian regimes".
Garzon must also pay the defence team's costs, as well as an as yet unspecified fine. He had claimed the wiretaps were necessary because he believed witnesses in the Gurtel case were giving their defence lawyers instructions to launder money.
