MADRID - Spanish prosecutors will recommend against opening an investigation into whether six Bush administration officials sanctioned torture against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the country's attorney-general said Thursday.

Candido Conde-Pumpido said the case against the high-ranking U.S. officials _ including former U.S. Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales _ was without merit because the men were not present when the alleged torture took place.

"If one is dealing with a crime of mistreatment of prisoners of war, the complaint should go against those who physically carried it out," Conde-Pumpido said in a breakfast meeting with journalists. He said a trial of the men would have turned Spain's National Court "into a plaything" to be used for political ends.

Prosecutors at Spain's National Court have not formally announced their decision in the case, but Conde-Pumpido is the country's top law-enforcement official and has the ultimate say.

A senior court official told The Associated Press that a formal announcement would not come until Friday. He said prosecutors would stop short of an outright call for dismissal of the case, but would raise a series of legal objections that would make it impossible for it to proceed in its current form. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Coming less than three months after the Bush administration left office, the case was the first of several international efforts to indict former administration officials. Human rights groups have also tried to bring suit against Bush officials in a German court.

In addition to Gonzales, the complaint named ex-Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; former Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington; Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee; and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes.

It alleged that the men _ who have become known as "The Bush Six" _ cleared the path for torture by claiming in advice and legal opinions that the president could ignore the Geneva Conventions, and by adopting an overly narrow definition of which interrogation techniques constituted torture.

Spanish law gives its courts jurisdiction beyond national borders in cases of torture or war crimes, based on a doctrine known as universal justice. If an indictment had been issued, it would have cleared the way for international arrest warrants, and _ in theory, at least _ extradition to Spain.

Gonzalo Boye, one of the human rights lawyers who brought the case in Spain, said the decision by Conde-Pumpido was politically motivated and set a terrible course for Spanish justice.

"The attorney-general speaks of the court being turned into a plaything. Well, I don't think the attorney-general's office should be turned into a plaything for politicians," Boye told The Associated Press.

"The attorney-general's argument is a political one, not a legal one. It is a terrible precedent if those intellectually responsible for crimes can no longer be held accountable."

In previous comments, Boye had made a point of saying he was going after the Bush administration's senior lawyers and advisers _ not the rank and file military and intelligence agents who may have carried out the abuse _ because he considered them ultimately responsible.

The case was first presented last month to crusading investigative judge Baltasar Garzon, the magistrate who prosecuted ex-Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1990s. Under Spanish law, he passed it on to prosecutors for a recommendation on whether to launch a full-blown investigation.

While an investigative judge is not bound by the prosecutors' decision, it would be highly unusual for a case to proceed without their support. The court official told AP that in addition to raising the legal doubts, prosecutors will say that Garzon should be replaced by another judge who is already investigating whether secret CIA flights to Guantanamo ever entered Spanish airspace.

Observers say the removal of Garzon would be another serious blow for the hopes of human rights lawyers, who saw him as being sympathetic to their cause.

Most of the American officials named in the case have remained silent since the allegations first surfaced in March. Feith, however, has condemned the court's action, calling Spain's claim of jurisdiction "a national insult with harmful implications."

Former President George W. Bush has steadfastly denied the U.S. tortured anyone. The U.S. has acknowledged that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described plotter of Sept. 11, and a few other prisoners were waterboarded at secret CIA prisons before being taken to Guantanamo, but the Bush administration insisted that all interrogations were lawful.

The case came at a delicate time for Spain, whose Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is hoping to improve relations with Washington after eight years of strained ties during Bush's term.

The government has insisted the court is independent and that the executive branch has no sway over its decisions.

Associated Press writer Jorge Sainz contributed to this report.

A service of the Associated Press(AP)