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NEWS > Top Stories > Story Archives > 2002 Stories >
Clinic Helps Victims of Torture Win Case Against Salvadoran Generals
A Florida jury in a federal civil trial awarded $54.6 million to three Salvadorans who proved that they were detained and brutally tortured by Salvadoran security forces between 1979 and 1983. Professor Carolyn Patty Blum, director of Boalt's International Human Rights Law Clinic, worked with a dozen students, including Mary Beth Kaufman '03 and Daniela Yanai '03, to assist the plaintiffs in the suit. Both Kaufman and Yanai traveled to Florida for the trial.
The plaintiffs in the case, Juan Romagoza, Neris Gonzalez and Carlos Mauricio, sued former Salvadoran generals José Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who both retired to Florida in 1989. The victims were subjected to various forms of torture—including beatings, electric shocks and rape—by Salvadoran national guardsmen and police commanded by the two generals.
The suit was based on two federal laws—the Torture Victim Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act—that allow torture victims to seek redress in U.S. courts, even if the offenses occurred elsewhere.
The suit was initiated in 1999 by the Center for Justice & Accountability, which is directed by Sandra Coliver '81. Peter Stern '92 of Morrison & Foerster LLP was part of the legal team representing the plaintiffs.
A related story about the case is available in The Daily Californian.
For more information, please read the press release or contact Erin Campbell at 510-643-8010 or ecampbell@law.berkeley.edu.
(7/25/02) | 
