CJA In The News

A former Chilean Army officer charged with murdering Víctor Jara, a popular folk singer, shortly after the 1973 military coup has been sued in a Florida court under federal laws allowing legal action against human rights violators living in the United States.

The family of folk singer Victor Jara, one of the best known of the more than 4,000 people who were killed and disappeared in the Sept. 11, 1973 coup in Chile, filed a civil suit Wednesday against one of his alleged killers, a former Chilean army lieutenant now living in Florida.

The family of Victor Jara claims to have solved the 40-year-old mystery of who killed the revered folk singer during Chile’s 1973 coup, and they’re preparing to prove it in a federal courtroom in Jacksonville, Florida, invoking rarely used U.S. laws that address human rights violations committed elsewhere.

The Center for Justice and Accountability (“CJA”) and pro-bono counsel Chadbourne & Parke, LLP (“Chadbourne”) today announced that they have filed a lawsuit on behalf of the surviving family members of Chilean folk singer and social icon Víctor Jara, who was imprisoned, tortured and executed in Chile during the early days of the brutal military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nuñez (“Barrientos”), a current resident of Deltona, Florida and a former officer in the Chilean Army under Pinochet.

The long quest to bring the Salvadoran military killers of six Jesuit priests to justice has received a significant boost, human rights activists say, with the sentencing of a former commander — on unrelated charges in a faraway Boston court.

Human rights advocates called it a step toward justice Tuesday when a federal judge in Boston sentenced a Salvadoran ex-colonel to prison on separate charges as Spain attempts to prosecute him for war crimes during his country’s civil conflict.

Aunque fue juzgado por fraude migratorio y perjurio en Estados Unidos, el exviceministro de Seguridad se convirtió en el primer militar salvadoreño cuya vinculación a violaciones a los derechos humanos pesó para que lo enviaran a prisión. Montano deberá cumplir 21 meses de cárcel, a la que entrará el 11 de octubre para esperar el curso del pedido de extradición a España, donde es procesado por el asesinato de los sacerdotes jesuitas.

A federal judge presiding over the immigration case of a former Salvadoran military colonel wants to know more about the status of Spain’s request for the United States government to hand over the defendant for a war crimes trial.

Los testigos en el juicio por fraude migratorio contra el exviceministro de Seguridad Pública salvadoreño terminaron de rendir sus declaraciones este lunes, en Boston, Estados Unidos. La lectura de la sentencia se pospuso para este martes y los querellantes esperan que abra el camino para tramitar la extradición pedida por España por el asesinato de los sacerdotes jesuitas en 1989.

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio [official websites] on Tuesday awarded [CJA press release, PDF] $5 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages to a victim of torture at the hands of a Somali military colonel some 25 years ago.