CJA In The News

Tonight Hemispheres commemorates the 40th anniversary of the US-backed coup in Chile that brought to power a ruthless dictator, Agusto Pinochet, whose regime killed and disappeared thousands of Chileans during his dictatorship. We wll hear from Almudena Bernabeu, International Attorney & Transitional Justice Program Director at the Center for Justice and Accountability.

It is not the only quest for justice in Chile that dates back to the dark days, weeks and years following General Augusto Pinochet’s ousting of socialist president Salvador Allende. Thousands were executed or made to disappear, and thousands more tortured after the CIA-backed military takeover. But Jara – folk-singer, theatre director and cultural ambassador of the Allende government – remains arguably the best-known victim and a potent symbol of a nation still struggling to find peace with itself more than two decades since the return of democracy.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of what’s known as the other 9/11: September 11, 1973, when a U.S.-backed military coup ousted Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende and ushered in a 17-year repressive dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet. We’re joined by Joan Jara, the widow of Chilean singer Víctor Jara, who has just filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. court against the former military officer who allegedly killed Jara 40 years ago. Jara’s accused killer, Pedro Barrientos, has lived in the United States for roughly two decades and is now a U.S. citizen. Jara’s family is suing him under federal laws that allow U.S. courts to hear about human rights abuses committed abroad. Last year, Chilean prosecutors charged Barrientos and another officer with Jara’s murder, naming six others as accomplices.

Four decades after Jara’s death, a civil lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Jacksonville, claiming that Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez — a man now living in Florida — is responsible for those events as well as the torture of Jara in the days after the democratically elected Marxist President Salvador Allende was toppled and a military dictatorship installed.

CJA Legal Director Kathy Roberts discusses the Yousuf v. Samantar case.

Thousands of miles from where Víctor Jara was murdered, the battle to bring his killers to justice is now making its way to U.S. courts as the family sues Pedro Barrientos, a former military officer living in Florida, for: “torture; extrajudicial killing; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; crimes against humanity and arbitrary detention.”

The surviving family of well-known Chilean folk artist Victor Jara, who was tortured and killed in a military coup in 1973, has filed a federal lawsuit against the army lieutenant accused of leading the execution — who has been quietly living in Central Florida. Jara’s widow and children accuse Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez of Deltona of carrying out a host of violations including crimes against humanity and torture.

A former Chilean army lieutenant now living in Deltona and accused of torturing and killing a folk singer during the dictatorship of Chile’s President Augusto Pinochet should pay for the slaying, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Florida this week by the singer’s family. The lawsuit comes as Chilean officials prepare to submit an order from that country’s Supreme Court requesting the extradition of Deltona resident Pedro Pablo Barrientos to Chile.

Musician Victor Jara’s family has sued a retired Chilean army officer who lives in Florida for allegedly torturing and killing the folk singer and political activist after a military coup four decades ago. The Center for Justice and Accountability, or CJA, and Chadbourne & Parke, LLP filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of Jara’s family in a Florida district court.

A lawsuit was filed in Florida on Thursday seeking damages against a former Chilean military officer accused of torturing and executing the folk singer Víctor Jara shortly after General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973 military coup.