MADRID (AFP) - A Spanish court has agreed to hear a lawsuit against former Chinese president Hu Jintao as part of an investigation into whether he carried out a genocide in Tibet in the 1980s and 1990s, according to a judicial decree.

The court decided to hear the complaint against Hu after accepting an appeal against a decision by Judge Ismael Moreno, who in June had rejected it, according to the decree published on Thursday.

Since 2006, Mr Moreno has been hearing a lawsuit for genocide against various former Chinese leaders over the repression carried out in Tibet in the 1980s and 1990s.

The lawsuit, which was filed by the Tibet Support Committee, targeted seven past Chinese leaders, among them former president Jiang Zemin and former prime minister Li Peng.

It asked for Mr Hu to be charged once his immunity as head of state expired.

He stepped down in March this year.

The court on Thursday accepted the allegations of the plaintiffs against Mr Moreno's decision to say that Mr Hu "had sufficient organic competency and capacity to lead a series of actions and campaigns tending to harass the Tibetan population."

Considering that "during the diverse campaigns of repression in Tibet between 1988-1992, he held the post of Chinese communist party secretary in the region of Tibet."

Moreover, the court, following the allegations of the plaintiffs, recalled there are UN resolutions recognising that "the Chinese authorities decided to carry out a series of combined actions to eliminate the special character and existence of the Tibetan country by imposing martial law, carrying out forced displacements, massive sterilisation campaigns, torture of dissidents".