CJA In The News

Former defense minister of El Salvador, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, leaves federal court in Palm Beach, Fla. An immigration appeals court earlier this week ruled that a former defense minister of El Salvador can be deported back to the Central American country due to his participation in or concealment of torture and murder by his troops during the bloody civil war in the 1980s.

On March 11, 2015, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova’s appeal to cancel his removal from the United States for having ordered the torture and extrajudicial killings of civilians in El Salvador, including the torture of CJA clients Dr. Juan Romagoza Arce and Mr. Pedro Daniel Alvarado. Read more in this New York Times article.

Washington.- El exministro de Defensa salvadoreño, Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova,implicado en masacres, torturas y ejecuciones extrajudiciales durante el conflicto civil en El Salvador, afrontará la deportación después de que este miércoles una junta de apelaciones de Inmigración recomendara su expulsión de EEUU.

An immigration appeals panel has upheld the deportation order of a former El Salvador defense minister who oversaw the torture and killings of thousands of civilians during that country’s bloody civil war.

Supreme Court lets stand a ruling awarding CJA clients $21 million in damages for torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other human rights abuses committed by former Somali Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, Mohamed Ali Samantar.

Letter to the editor urges Sri Lanka to engage directly with the United Nations investigation and facilitate open and secure engagement for victims in conflict-affected areas. It should immediately appoint an independent prosecutor, autonomous from the attorney general, to investigate past crimes, as Sri Lanka’s own 1994 and 1998 disappearances commissions have recommended.

CJA Staff Attorney Scott Gilmore’s letter to The New York Times regarding the recent deportation of Bosnian war criminals calls on the Justice Department to step up prosecutions: “While commendable, treating war crimes as an immigration matter falls short of our international obligations. What is missing is criminal justice.”

Un teniente retirado del ejército chileno, acusado de haber participado en el asesinato de su compatriota Víctor Jara, pidió a un juez federal de la Florida que desestime la demanda civil en su contra, presentada hace más de un año por la familia del fallecido cantautor y activista político.

CJA welcomes news that Sri Lanka has adopted a witness protection law. The announcement comes days after the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights agreed to temporarily delay until September a U.N. report on human rights abuses in Sri Lanka during and immediately following its 26-year civil war. Click here to read more.

CJA filed a brief yesterday in our historic case Jara v. Barrientos, accepting the defendant’s motion to set aside a default judgment and agreeing not to oppose the removal of the default judgment against former Pinochet Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez, accused of torturing and killing Chilean folksinger and activist Víctor Jara. The family of Mr. Jara welcomed Barrientos’s motion, which, if granted, would allow the case to proceed to a full trial and bring to light the events that transpired surrounding their loved one’s death. Click here to read more.