On March 31, 2006, CJA received a default judgment and concluded a trial on damages in our case against former Honduran military intelligence chief Colonel Juan López Grijalba. The court held López Grijalba legally responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances and ordered him to pay $47 million to six plaintiffs - torture survivors and family members of people disappeared and executed by Honduran security forces.

This is the first case in which a Honduran military leader has been held liable for human rights abuses committed during the 1980s. López Grijalba was deported to back to Honduras in 2004. The Attorney General of Honduras approached CJA in May 2006 to assist in a criminal prosecution of López Grijalba for human rights abuses based on evidence developed in our U.S. civil case.

As first step to initiating the prosecution, CJA trained 80 Honduran prosecutors on bringing successful human rights cases in national courts in December 2007 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The training was historic on many levels and represented the first time that prosecutors in Honduras had been trained on international law and human rights prosecutions.

Background

Beginning in the late 1970's a special military intelligence unit within the Honduran security forces began carrying out a series of abductions, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings against suspected political "subversives." During the late 1970's through 1984, more than 150 persons were disappeared or extrajudicially killed, and many more were abducted and tortured. The unit with principal responsibility for carrying out these actions, initially known by various informal names, eventually was organized as "Battalion 3-16" in the early 1980's. Battalion 3-16 and its precursors operated under the direction of the Honduran Armed Forces General Staff, in particular its intelligence division known as G-2, or under the control of or in coordination with the intelligence police, DNI (Dirreción Nacional de Investigaciones, National Investigations Directorate), and its operational forces.

As the chief of the DNI, and later of intelligence for the Armed Forces General and Joint Staffs, Juan López Grijalba had the legal authority and practical ability to exert control over subordinates, which included personnel of the DNI and Battalion 3-16 that participated in the abductions and torture of plaintiffs Oscar and Gloria Reyes and the disappearances and extrajudicial killings of Manfredo Velásquez and John Doe. Grijalba had a duty, under customary international law, multilateral treaties, and Honduran law, to ensure the protection of civilians and to prevent violations of international law by the military and security forces under his command. He failed or refused to take all necessary measures to investigate and prevent such abuses committed by or attributed to his subordinates, or to punish personnel under his command for committing such abuses.

Today, despite the widespread attribution of responsibility to Battalion 3-16, the DNI and the Honduran Armed Forces for human rights abuses, charges have been filed against military officials in only a few cases, and none of these cases have even proceeded to trial. Witnesses in some proceedings have been killed or intimidated, and the perpetrators never identified.

Reyes v. LOpez Grijalba

On July 15, 2002 CJA filed a civil lawsuit against former Honduran military intelligence chief Lt. Col. Juan López Grijalba, on behalf of six former Honduran citizens.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, five of whom are now U.S. citizens, include Oscar and Gloria Reyes, who were abducted by soldiers wearing black masks in 1982 and subjected to electric shock and beatings in a clandestine torture facility; Ricardo and Zenaida Velásquez, the son and sister of Manfredo Velásquez, who was abducted by Honduran soldiers in 1981 and has not been seen since; and Martha Madisson and Karen Burgos, sisters of disappeared university student Hans Madisson whose exhumation later showed that he had been mutilated and decapitated.

The complaint alleged that Grijalba permitted subordinates in the Honduran military and paramilitary forces to commit acts of torture, disappearance and extrajudicial killing, and exercised command responsibility over, conspired with, and aided and abetted such forces in their commission of, and in covering up, these abuses.

On March 16, 2006, CJA and pro bono co-counsel Carlton Fields presented evidence in a trial on damages before U.S. District Court Judge Joan A. Lenard.  CJA clients Oscar and Gloria Reyes gave extensive testimony about their torture and prolonged arbitrary detention.

On March 31, Judge Lenard ordered Lopez Grijalba to pay $47 million to the six plaintiffs.  In her written opinion, she held López Grijalba legally responsible for torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances in the Central American nation, stating that his conduct was “highly egregious.” 

Deportation & Criminal Prosecution of Lopez Grijalba

Grijalba came to the U.S. in 1998. He was arrested by the INS in April 2002, and was held for over 2 years at Krome Detention Center in Miami.

In June of 2004, the Immigration Court ordered that he be deported for his participation in human rights abuses. CJA worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security on the immigration case. In finding that López Grijalba had been a persecutor, the immigration judge cited the testimony of several witnesses whose participation was facilitated by CJA. Lopez Grijalba was deported on October 21, 2004.

After the judgment in our U.S. civil case, Honduran Attorney General Leonidas Rosa Bautista and the Human Rights Prosecutors Office approached CJA to explore the possibility of a criminal prosecution of López Grijalba for human rights abuses based on the evidence developed by CJA. To date, the government of Honduras has not prosecuted a single military leader for the widespread human rights abuses that were committed in the 1980s.

Training Honduran Prosecutors

As a first step to the prosecution of López Grijalba and other perpetrators, Attorney General Rosa Bautista requested that CJA develop a training program for Honduran prosecutors on the practical "how to" specifics of using their national court system to prosecute human rights crimes.

CJA’s first training program, Prosecuting Human Rights Crimes in National Courts, was held on December 4-6, 2007 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  The training brought together 80 Honduran prosecutors with a faculty of legal practitioners from Latin America, Spain and the U.S. with experience and expertise in the prosecution of human rights abusers.  In addition to covering the basics of international law, investigation and case development, the sessions also provided participants with specific examples of legal strategies used by prosecutors, judges and attorneys for non-governmental agencies in the national courts of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Spain and the U.S..

The training was historic on many levels and represented the first time that prosecutors in Honduras had been trained on international law and human rights prosecutions. We continue to work with individual prosecutors who seek to bring a criminal case against Col. López Grijalba in Honduras.