“There’s no accountability process,” he said. “There’re no court proceedings. There’re no truth commissions. There’s even less appetite today than there was three years ago.”

Open Society has asked the European Court of Human Rights to press Poland to investigate the CIA’s treatment of a current Guantánamo captive who was waterboarded and threatened with a cocked gun in a secret CIA prison.

That case’s theory: Europe has an obligation to intervene because the Pentagon is seeking the execution of that captive, alleged USS Cole bomber Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who is currently facing charges before a military commission at Guantánamo.

Ruz ruled that under international law the United States has no right to declare itself immune from international prohibitions against torture “even in times of war or the fight against terrorism.” He also rejected U.S. claims that Guantánamo detainees had no right to protection under the Geneva conventions.

The roots of the Spanish torture case, in a twist, were a request from the Bush administration that Spain prosecute Spanish detainee Lahcen Ikassrien on terror charges upon his release from Guantánamo. Spain did and initially found him guilty. But Spain’s high court threw out that case, saying his statements while being interrogated at Guantánamo were unreliable because he had been tortured.

Three other former Guantánamo detainees joined Ikassrien in his complaint: Hamed Abderraman Ahmed, who also was released to Spain, and Jamil el Banna and Omar Deghayes, both of whom are now in Great Britain.

The Spanish judge said he decided to proceed with the case because the United States had never responded to a July 2009 question from the Spanish government about whether an investigation would be launched into the allegations.

There was no immediate comment Friday from the State Department.

Ruz said the first step in his investigation would be to obtain medical statements that the complainants had suffered injuries consistent with torture. He also asked the defendants to provide a Spanish-language translation of a July report by Human Rights Watch titled “Getting Away With Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees.”

Ruz also ordered the Spanish newspaper El Pais to surrender documents it had obtained from WikiLeaks that the paper had cited in April as evidence of abuse. He said the documents – secret assessments of the four prisoners that WikiLeaks shared with several news organizations, including McClatchy – were necessary to determine if the officers who’d signed them – Army Maj. Gen. Jay W. Hood, retired Army National Guard Brig. Gen. Mitchell Leclaire, and Army Reserve Brig. Gen. James E. Payne III – should be called as witnesses.

Hood was in charge of the prison camps at Guantánamo and signed the assessment of Ikassrien in November 2004. He also signed Banna’s assessment in May 2005. Leclaire, who retired as commander of the Michigan Army National Guard, was deputy commander at Guantánamo and signed Omar Deghayes’ risk assessment in 2004. Payne, who also served as deputy commander of the camps, signed Hamed Abderraman Ahmed’s assessment in 2003.