A court in Spain has shelved the first case and only probe into alleged torture under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, according to a ruling made public on Tuesday.
Julio Pacheco Yepes, 68, was questioned by a judge in September 2023 -- the first time someone who says they were detained and tortured during the Franco era testified at a Spanish court.
He was 19 when he was arrested in Madrid in August 1975 for belonging to a left-wing underground movement that opposed the regime.
His detention happened just three months before the death of Franco, who ruled with an iron fist following the end of Spain's 1936-39 civil war.
The former printer said he was tortured for several days at the Madrid police headquarters before being jailed for "terrorism".
Pacheco Yepes filed a lawsuit against his four alleged torturers in February 2023, a year after Spain's left-wing government passed a democratic memory law to tackle the legacy of the civil war and the ensuing dictatorship, and honour victims of violence and persecution under Franco.
A Madrid court in May 2023 accepted the case, saying there was possible evidence of "crimes against humanity and torture".
But it closed the case on July 31 on the grounds that the time limit for filing criminal charges had passed and because the alleged crimes fell under an amnesty law passed in 1977 during the transition to democracy -- arguments used by courts in the past to routinely reject lawsuits filed by victims of the regime.
"Jurisprudence has not changed after the enactment of the democratic memory law," the court wrote in its ruling.
- 'Devastating' -
Pacheco Yepes told AFP he had appealed the decision and was prepared to "keep fighting it" all the way to the Constitutional Court and European courts.
"It's devastating," he said, adding he felt "anger".
"There has been a lot of movement, we have gone to testify. So there was a certain expectation that we could get somewhere," he added.
"What we achieved was to be heard in a court of law. It was the first time it happened, wasn't it?".
Amnesty International denounced the court's ruling, saying in a statement that it "consolidates a model of impunity that is unacceptable in a state governed by the rule of law and undermines the most basic rights of those who suffered Franco's crimes"
The rights group vowed to "continue to fight to break down the wall of impunity, to ensure that the crimes against humanity committed during Francoism are investigated and brought to justice."
The United Nations has urged Spain to revoke the amnesty law, which prevents the prosecution not only of offences committed by political opponents of the regime, but also those carried out by "civil servants and public order agents" such as police.
- 'Billy the Kid' -
Many Franco-era torturers have died without ever standing trial, such as policeman Juan Antonio Gonzalez Pacheco, who died in 2020.
His nickname was "Billy el Nino" or "Billy the Kid" for his habit of spinning a gun around his finger as he beat his victims.
One of the people who filed a lawsuit against him was Pacheco Yepes's wife, Rosa Maria Garcia Alcon, but her lawsuit was rejected. She was arrested at the same time as Pacheco Yepes in August 1975.
Faced with legal obstacles in Spain, victims' groups turned to Argentina, where magistrate Maria Servini in 2010 invoked the principle of "universal justice" to open an investigation into genocide and crimes against humanity during Spain's civil war and the ensuing dictatorship.
As part of the ongoing inquiry, Servini in 2014 issued 20 international arrest warrants for former Franco regime officials, among them ministers, judges and police officers, but Madrid refused to cooperate.