Former Peruvian President Fujimori Convicted of Human Rights Violations

April 7, 2009 - CJA praised today’s guilty verdict against former Peruvian president, Alberto Fujimori, as a victory in the struggle to bring human rights abusers to justice.  The historic verdict marks the first time that an elected head of state has been convicted of human rights violations by a national court in his own country. CJA worked closely with Peruvian NGOs representing the victims in the case, including the Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos, helped prepare witness testiomony, and briefed numerous legal issues for the prosecution.

Read CJA's press release on the verdict.
A copy of the verdict is available here (Spanish only). More on CJA's cases against other Peruvian human rights abusers.

Former Salvadoran Minister of DEfense Garcia indicted

February 23, 2009 - Today, the U.S. Department of Justice charged General Jose Guillermo García, the former Minister of Defense of El Salvador, on two counts of immigration fraud.  If convicted, García faces up to ten years in prison. To our knowledge, General García is the highest ranking perpetrator to be charged by the U.S. government to date. 

General García was a defendant in CJA’s U.S. civil human rights case Romagoza v. Garcia.  He was found responsible for the torture of three CJA clients: Dr. Juan Romagoza Arce, Neris Gonzalez and Carlos Mauricio. In 2006, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the $54.6 million jury verdict in the case. Read the full press release and the Indictment. More information on the case is available here.

SOMALI HUMAN RIGHTS CASE REINSTATED

January 8, 2009  - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit reinstated CJA's case against former General Mohamed Ali Samantar for widespread human rights abuses committed against the civilian population of Somalia.  The suit had been dismissed by the district court in 2007.  CJA and pro bono co-counsel Cooley Godward Kronish represent five Somali survivors against Samantar who was Minister of Defense during the regime of Siad Barre in the 1980s. Read the full press release and the decision. More on the case...

October 28, 2008 -Two years after Emmanuel “Toto” Constant was ordered to pay CJA clients $19 million for crimes he committed against them as the former leader of Haiti’s notorious death squad, FRAPH - Constant again found himself facing justice in a U.S. court. On October 28, Constant was sentenced to 12 to 37 years in prison for his role in a criminal mortgage fraud scheme in New York after being found guilty on all six felony counts against him in a July 2008 trial. Constant’s criminal trial and subsequent conviction is the result of measures taken by CJA to educate the U.S. government on Constant’s background as a human rights abuser. 

A full summary of of the criminal mortgage fraud case is available here. More information on CJA's human rights case against Constant is available here.

June 25, 2009 - Spain’s lower house of Parliament passed a bill that would limit the reach of universal jurisdiction and would profoundly restrict Spain’s ability to prosecute serious human rights crimes. The bill will go before the Spanish Senate for a final vote in the fall. Read a full analysis of the proposed legislation...

June 25, 2009 - Yale Law School Dean and renowned legal scholar Harold Koh was confirmed by the Senate today by a vote of 62-35. Koh, a close partner of CJA's, was the recipient of the Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award at CJA's 2008 Annual Event. He is a leading expert on international law and a prominent advocate of human and civil rights. Read more on CJA's Facebook page...

April 21, 2009 - Last week, President Obama released four declassified memos written by the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) under the Bush administration. These memos provided a legal framework for the torture of detainees held by the CIA in connection with the "War on Terror."

The contents of the memos are spine-chilling. Government lawyers employed strained legal reasoning to eviscerate the definition of torture under international and domestic U.S. law. In effect, these memos gave the imprimatur of the U.S. Justice Department to abhorrent and illegal acts. Read more...

March 17, 2009 - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has upheld a 2005 jury verdict holding former Vice-Minister of Defense of El Salvador Colonel Nicolas Carranza liable for crimes against humanity. On November 18, 2005, a Memphis jury found Carranza responsible for overseeing the plaintiffs' torture and the killing of their family members. The jury awarded $6 million in damages. CJA is hopeful that this appellate decision will encourage the U.S. Justice Department to bring proceedings to revoke Carranza's citizenship based on his human rights violations. Carranza came to the United States in 1985 and became a citizen in 1991.

Read CJA's press release on the ruling. Para español, pulse aquí. Read more about CJA's case against Col. Carranza.

January 13, 2009 - A Spanish judge opened an investigation into the case against 14 former Salvadoran military officials and has formally charged them over the killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter in the 1989 Jesuits Massacre.  The priests were targeted by the military, who regarded them as subversives for urging an end to El Salvador’s 12 year civil war, in which 75,000 were killed.

The officers responsible were charged today with crimes against humanity and state terrorism, under the principle of Universal Jurisdiction – the same principle used in the case against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.  This development officially opens the investigation stage of the criminal prosecution.  The case was filed on November 13, 2008 by CJA with Madrid-based Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos en España in Spanish National Court. 

Para español, pulse aquí. Read the full press release on the filing. Selected media coverage is available here. More information on the case, including legal documents and biographies of the defendants and victims, is available here.