[JURIST] Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] took the stand in his second trial [JURIST report] before the Spanish Supreme Court [official website, in Spanish] on Tuesday and defended his investigation into war crimes allegedly committed under Francisco Franco [BBC backgrounder] during the Spanish Civil War. Garzon has been charged with abusing power by ordering the exhumation [JURIST reports] of 19 mass graves in Spain in order to assemble a definitive national registry of Civil War victims, despite a 1977 law that provides amnesty for Franco-era crimes. While on the stand, Garzon refused to answer questions [CNN...