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The first female Attorney General of Guatemala is taking on some of the country's most powerful kingpins, past dictators and local crime bosses. She's lowered the Central American nation's high crime rate and brought justice for victims of the 36 year old civil war. Dr. Paz y Paz will be receiving the 2013 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award at CJA's 15th Anniversary Dinner.

General Ríos Montt’s congressional term ended in January 2012. Two weeks later, he was indicted for genocide in his home country. Guatemala’s 36-year-long civil war was one of the bloodiest and most vicious of modern times, pitting state security forces and their allies against leftist rebels. By the war’s end in 1996, and in a country one-fourth the size of California, more than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared.

More than 200,000 people were killed or disappeared in Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war. It was one of the bloodiest and most vicious of modern times. But one period was especially brutal, the one in which General Efraín Rios Montt was in charge.

A judge had just ruled that the military dictator, Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, now 86, should stand trial for genocide and crimes against humanity committed under his rule in the 1980s, a decision Mr. Utuy and other Maya survivors of Guatemala’s 34-year civil war had gathered in the courtroom to hear in person.

March 19, sees the scheduled start date for the oral phase of the trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against Rios Montt and Rodriguez Sanchez. They are accused of being the intellectual authors of the assassination of 1,771 indigenous Mayans of Ixil ethnicity in the Quiche Department, the forced displacement of 29,000, and sexual violations and torture, in massacres and violations perpetrated by the Guatemalan military during Rios Montt’s 17-month rule between 1982 and 1983.

Bay Area survivors of Cambodia's genocide are dismayed with Thursday's death of a Khmer Rouge leader before he could face justice at the hands of an international tribunal for his role in the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s.

For the first time in history a former head of state, Guatemala's Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt, is on trial for genocide in the country where the crime occurred. Two hundred thousand died over 36 years of armed conflict in the Central American nation, mostly Maya indigenous noncombatants at government hands. The unfolding judicial process has global repercussions, strengthening possibilities for prosecution of other prominent human rights cases.

A former El Salvador defense minister admitted responsibility for military abuses against civilians during his country's civil war on Wednesday, saying he could not stop human rights violations because of divisions within the armed forces.

El juicio para la deportación del exministro de Defensa de El Salvador José Guillermo García Merino se retomó hoy al norte de Miami (EE.UU.) con tres sesiones previstas esta semana para la declaración de los testigos más importantes.

A former Central American general took the stand in his own defense at a deportation hearing on Tuesday, saying he did not commit or order any acts of torture or extrajudicial killings during El Salvador's brutal civil war.

El próximo 19 de marzo Efraín Ríos Montt rendirá cuentas ante la justicia guatemalteca por actos de genocidio. Guatemala está dividida y es que a pesar de todas las pruebas presentadas para demostrar la culpabilidad de Ríos Montt en la matanza de más de 1.700 mayas indígenas ixiles entre 1982 y 1983, muchos continúan negando esa parte de la historia.

A Guatemalan judge ordered Efraín Rios Montt, the former dictator, and his intelligence chief to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the massacres of villagers in remote highlands three decades ago.

Human rights advocates claimed a victory after a federal judge in Boston said he would consider a former El Salvadoran military colonel's alleged war crimes before sentencing him on separate immigration charges.

Un médico salvadoreño declaró el miércoles en la corte de inmigración de Miami que presenció masacres, atendió a victimas de torturas y sufrió torturas él mismo cuando el ex general José Guillermo García era ministro de la Defensa en El Salvador.

El ex embajador de Estados Unidos en El Salvador declaró el martes en la corte de inmigración de Miami que varias veces le solicitó al entonces ministro salvadoreño de Defensa, José Guillermo García, que despidiera o castigara a los militares que cometían atrocidades pero que éste nunca mostró interés en hacer nada.

El juicio sobre la posible deportación del exministro de Defensa de El Salvador José Guillermo García Merino, acusado en su país de participar en actos de tortura y violaciones a los derechos humanos durante la guerra civil (1980-1992), se inició hoy en un tribunal de Estados Unidos.

Dejó Valencia para defender causas de justicia internacional desde su despacho en San Francisco. Esta abogada de 40 años viaja de Siria a Guatemala; de El Salvador a Madrid, en busca de un mundo mejor para todos.

A federal judge has found a former Somali colonel who lives in Columbus liable for torturing a human-rights attorney more than two decades ago before a brutal civil war fractured his country.

A former military colonel with a Somali security force dubbed the “Gestapo of Somalia” by its critics was responsible for the torture of a human rights advocate in the 1980s, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a decision that opens the door for a hearing on potential financial damages.

This essay will examine some new developments in the case of one of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Salvadoran security forces during the twelve year long civil war: the massacre on the campus of the José Simeón Cañas University of Central America (UCA) in San Salvador on November 16, 1989. This is an immensely important issue because it could begin to balance the dialectic between impunity and accountability to the side of accountability. For the first time, a high-ranking army officer may soon be tried for this crime.

There is no possibility of immunity for the former Somali prime minister who conceded liability over the mass killing and torture of his people, the 4th Circuit ruled.

In a landmark decision, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has denied Samantar's appeal in the first case to consider the "common law immunity" of foreign officials. The decision denies immunity for human rights abuses like torture and extrajudicial killing and denies absolute deference to the executive branch.

In the history of state-sponsored torture, a rarely acknowledged truth is that accountability only takes place in countries where the torturing government has fallen from power. Victors tend neither to acknowledge nor to hold themselves accountable for torture.

Radio France Internationale interview with CJA Staff Attorney Kathy Roberts about the historic judgment in the Yousuf v. Samantar case. This judgment marks the first time that any Somali government official has been held accountable for the atrocities perpetrated under the Siad Barre regime.

CJA Staff Attorney Kathy Roberts discusses the $21 million dollar judgment in Yousuf v. Samantar with KCBS radio.

A US court has ordered former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Samantar to pay $21m (£13m) to seven Somalis who accused him of torture and killings.

A U.S. court has ordered a former Somali prime minister to pay $21 million to victims of torture and human rights abuses while he was in office.

A former Somali prime minister denied diplomatic immunity must pay $21 million in damages to the victims of his alleged torture and human rights abuse, a U.S. federal court ruled.

The former prime minister of Somalia on Thursday ended an eight-year legal battle by accepting legal liability for alleged war crimes and killings that occurred under the regime of dictator Siad Barre. But he denied wrongdoing and said he never approved any slayings.

A seven year court battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court ended in a federal courtroom in Virginia on Thursday when former Somali Gen. Mohamed Ali Samantar admitted liability for war crimes and human rights abuses committed in the late 1980s, when he was the defense minister and commander of military forces in Somalia.

Six from the Bay Area will be legally represented and could provide testimony during the second international tribunal of Khmer Rouge leaders charged with crimes against humanity.

Three Khmer Rouge survivors will stay in Cambodia for one week to witness the first substantial hearing of the trial to date.

A human rights group has discovered that a suspect in the 1989 slaying of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador has been living here in Everett.

EVERETT - A former Salvadoran government minister accused of colluding in the infamous killing of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador two decades ago has been living a quiet life in a modest apartment building in Everett.

In one of the worst atrocities of El Salvador's dirty wars, members of the military murdered six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter 22 years ago. Now an extradition battle looms after the defence ministry handed over nine of the 20 accused to the judicial authorities in a move that has surprised many human rights workers.

The initial hearings in Cambodia’s Case 002 have closed. The lines of defence to be employed by the four accused of involvement in genocide are becoming clear.

The Center for Justice and Accountability is helping Cambodian-Americans seeking a place at Khmer Rouge tribunal hearings. Under tribunal rules the victims have a right to file grievances and applications to be witnesses, even if they have fled overseas.

On a recent Saturday in Long Beach, survivors of the Khmer Rouge stepped to a microphone to tell stories that are hard to hear.

Distance is perhaps one barrier that prevents US-Cambodian survivors of the Khmer Rouge from participating in UN-backed trials underway in Phnom Penh. But that did not stop Chanthorn Pech or Roath Prom from becoming participants in the tribunal’s next case—002—an atrocity trial for four jailed Khmer Rouge leaders.

One of the worst genocides of the 20th century happened in Cambodia, in the 1970s. The extremist Khmer Rouge party, led by Pol Pot tried to create a rural farming society, evacuating people from their homes and jobs in urban areas to the country, where many were killed by the government, starved, or were worked to death.

A year-and-a-half ago when refugee survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime gathered in Long Beach to fill out forms about atrocities they witnessed in the mid-'70 s in Cambodia, they had no idea whether it would make a difference. On Saturday, many of them got their answer.

The Obama administration has announced that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks will be tried by military commissions at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay—not in U.S. civilian court. There will, however, be one Guantánamo case tried in New York. Today the New York State Supreme Court will hear the case against Dr. John Leso, a psychologist accused of participating in torture during interrogation of detainees in Guantánamo. The case was brought on behalf of Dr. Steven Reisner, who is at the center of a growing group of medical professionals campaigning against the participation of psychologists in the U.S. government’s interrogation programs.

On the same day President Barack Obama formally launched his re-election campaign, his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks would be tried not in federal court, but through controversial military commissions at Guantánamo. Holder blamed members of Congress, who, he said, "have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantánamo detainees to trial in the United States." Nevertheless, one Guantánamo case will be tried in New York.

MANHATTAN (CN) - New York State Supreme Court Justice Saliann Scarpulla said that she sympathized with, but is unlikely to grant, a licensed psychologist's petition to compel an investigation into another psychologist's alleged human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

NEW YORK — A push to shed light on psychologists' role in terror suspect interrogations got a rare court airing Wednesday, as a judge told human rights advocates she shared their "sensibility" but wasn't sure they had legal grounds to force a state investigation.

NEW YORK--The practices of a New York-licensed psychologist will be reviewed by a state Supreme Court judge today, after he was accused of creating U.S. interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay that some decry as torture.

A Spanish judge has issued an international arrest warrant seeking the extradition of a former Guatemalan soldier suspected of involvement in a brutal 1982 massacre during Guatemala's civil war, a court official said Monday.

A judge ruled Friday that a former Somali prime minister who has been living quietly in the U.S. for the last 14 years can be questioned under oath in a federal lawsuit alleging he oversaw war crimes and other abuses against his own people more than a quarter century ago.

Many Cambodians have lived the lives of ghosts in Silicon Valley, not seen or heard from much, quietly tormented every day and every night with unbearable memories of the genocide that wiped out entire families -- parents, spouses, children, extended relatives.

Now an American, Sophany Bay is filing as a complainant in the upcoming Khmer Rouge tribunal for four regime leaders. She says she wants to have a monument erected, one where she can keep a photograph of her youngest daughter and where she might engrave the names of her two other children lost to the regime.

A group of Cambodian-Americans is meeting in California later this week to discuss their legal options for reparations under the Khmer Rouge tribunal as a case for four leaders of the regime moves ahead.

MCLEAN, Va. — A judge has denied legal immunity to a former Somali prime minister now living in northern Virginia who is accused in a federal lawsuit of torture and war crimes.

NEW YORK — A court was asked Wednesday to force an investigation into whether an Army psychologist developed abusive interrogation techniques for detainees at Guantanamo Bay and should be stripped of his license.

When Mohamed Ali Samantar came to the United States from war-torn Somalia in 1997, he hoped to live quietly in retirement in suburban Virginia. But thanks to a little-known San Francisco human rights group, the former Somali official instead became the focus of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court human rights case.

A human rights group and two law school clinics are going after the licenses of psychologists involved in the interrogations and torture of detainees by the U.S. military and intelligence personnel.

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- The American Psychological Association is taking the unprecedented step of supporting an attempt to strip the license of a psychologist accused of overseeing the interrogation of a CIA detainee.

If their aim was to break him, his interrogators apparently succeeded. By late November 2002, Mohammed al-Qahtani—a suspected Al Qaeda operative sometimes described as the 20th hijacker—was hearing voices, talking to imaginary people, and spending hours on end cowering in a corner of his Guantanamo cell with a sheet draped over him.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Two Army psychologists helped perpetrate abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay including sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation, according to complaints filed Wednesday by human rights groups trying to have the psychologists' state licenses revoked.

More than 20 years have passed since the assassination of father Ignacio Ellacuría, ideologist of liberation theology, and four other Jesuits at the hands of the El Salvador Army and the fence around the intellectual authors of that killing begins to close.

Miami (EE.UU.), 1 jul (EFE).- Una organización internacional de derechos humanos presentó una demanda civil contra el ex jefe paramilitar colombiano Carlos Mario Jiménez, alias "Macaco", en un tribunal de Estados Unidos por "tortura, ejecución sumaria, crímenes de guerra y delitos de lesa humanidad.

Extradited Colombian Carlos Mario Jimenez, alias "Macaco," a leader of paramilitary block of the AUC, is the first paramilitary to be sued in U.S. courts for alleged human rights violations. The charges include torture, murder, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, according to the lawyer in charge of the case, Almudena Bernabeu, from the Center for Justice and Accountability.

MIAMI – A U.S. human rights organization is suing former Colombian militia leader Carlos Mario Jimenez for torture, extrajudicial killing, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

A jailed Colombian warlord has been sued by the relatives of two people believed to have been killed by his paramilitary forces. The lawsuit against Carlos Mario Jimenez, who is awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges, was filed in federal court here June 14 and publicized by the plaintiffs' attorneys Thursday.

In a major victory for a San Francisco-based human rights group, the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday ruled unanimously that former officials of foreign countries are barred from claiming immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for alleged acts of torture.

A group of Somalis who allege torture and killings by the former government of their homeland may pursue their lawsuit against a former prime minister now living in Fairfax County, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The justices rule that the U.S. immunity law does not prevent Somalis who say they or their relatives were tortured from suing former Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Samantar, who now lives in Virginia.

Washington…Victims of torture at the hands of foreign government officials won a victory in the Supreme Court Tuesday, when the justices ruled federal law does not automatically shield ex-officials from being sued for ordering killings and the abuse of prisoners.

Columbus, OH (HOL) - The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP have filed a lawsuit against the former chief of Somali National Security Service (NSS). The lawsuit alleges that Col. Abdi Aden Magan ordered the detention and torture of a professor and human rights lawyer in 1988.

COLUMBUS -- A former Somali military colonel now living in Ohio ordered the detention and torture of a lawyer and human rights advocate in Somalia in 1988, an ordeal that permanently crippled the victim, according to a federal lawsuit filed today.

Reduced to ignominy, Alvaro Saravia--an architect of the assassination of Archbishop Romero--has been a pizza delivery man, a used car salesman and a drug money launderer. Now he is burning in the hell he helped create during a time when killing “communists” was a sport.

El mayor D´Aubuisson fue parte de la conspiración para asesinar a monseñor Romero, aunque el tirador lo puso un hijo del ex presidente Molina, dice el capitán Álvaro Saravia. 30 años después, él y otros de los involucrados reconstruyen aquellos días de tráfico de armas, de cocaína y de secuestros. Caído en desgracia, Saravia ha sido repartidor de pizzas, vendedor de carros usados y lavador de narcodinero. Ahora arde en el infierno que ayudó a prender aquellos días cuando matar "comunistas" era un deporte.

The three refugees from Somalia came to the Bay Area several years ago to escape the violence of their homeland, to put the terror behind them. But they were shocked to learn in 2002...

Original Guatemalan army records on a scorched-earth campaign known as "Operation Sofia," presented as evidence in a human rights case in Spain, have bolstered hopes for justice among the relatives of victims of Guatemala's 36-year civil war in which more than 200,000 people were killed.

Declassified CIA documents show that the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador followed three days of planning by senior Salvadoran military officers, an expert witness said Tuesday before Spain's National Court, which is hearing a case brought on behalf of the slain clerics.

Durante 20 años, la masacre de un grupo de jesuitas en la Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) de San Salvador ha permanecido en la impunidad.

A los 35 años de edad, la abogada española Almudena Bernabéu se ha convertido en el látigo de los militares salvadoreños que durante la guerra civil cometieron crímenes de lesa humanidad.

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on whether a former Somali prime minister is protected by sovereign immunity from a lawsuit seeking to hold him responsible for torture and human rights abuses.

The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court affirmed Tuesday that Nicolas Carranza, a former commander of El Salvador's security forces -- now a naturalized U.S. citizen and Memphis resident -- is responsible for human rights abuses that took place under his command in his native country in the 1980s...

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a district court decision finding former El Salvador chief military commander Nicolas Carranza liable for murder and torture committed during the El Salvador civil war in the 1980s...

A federal appeals court has reinstated a human rights lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities.

Nearly 20 years after the Salvadoran Army murdered six Jesuit priests in one of the most notorious incidents of the country's civil war, a criminal complaint filed in the Spanish High Court has revived hopes that those behind the slaughter could face trial.

CJA International Attorney Almudena Bernabeu and U.C Hastings College of the Law Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza summarize the history of the case and the historic 2008 testimony of Mayan genocide survivors in Madrid.

A woman who survived a massacre by Peruvian army units almost 20 years ago testified Monday against two former military officers, saying she watched soldiers rape and torture women and children.

A woman who survived a massacre by Peruvian army units almost 20 years ago testified Monday against two former military officers, saying she watched soldiers rape and torture women and children.

WASHINGTON -- For more than two years, U.S. authorities have had a more potent weapon to pursue alleged human rights abusers from other countries who have made the United States their home. The enhanced authority is starting to bear fruit.

WASHINGTON -- For more than two years, U.S. authorities have had a more potent weapon to pursue alleged human rights abusers from other countries who have made the United States their home. The enhanced authority is starting to bear fruit.

Report on Miami federal jury verdict...

Report on the Dorélien case during trial, after Cajuste's testimony...

Report on the Dorélien case just prior to trial...

On Monday, 61 years to the day when the first of the Nuremburg trials commenced to bring Nazi leaders to justice for crimes against humanity, a high-profile criminal against humanity, this time convicted in a US district court, entered Israel - and at the Israeli government's invitation.

As dusk approached and a light rain fell over Guatemala's Supreme Court plaza, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchú sought to buoy the spirits of the human rights activists, local clergy and Mayan women gathered there. "The Supreme Court hasn't given the green light on judging Ríos Montt yet," she said of the longstanding quest to bring the former dictator to trial. "But don't lose hope; we'll fight the rest of our lives to see there's full justice for the genocide in Guatemala."