Filártiga V

   Peña-Irala

   A landmark human-rights case, decided in 1980 in a U.S. federal court. It recognized the right of noncitizens to sue in U.S. courts for human-rights violations, even when the alleged violations took place outside the United States. It has served as precedent for many successful cases seeking punishment for those responsible for torture, rape, disappearance, and summary execution, cases brought by people from South and Central America, Africa, and Asia.

   In March 1976 Joelito Filártiga, a 17-year-old Paraguayan, was tortured to death in a police station in Asunción, Paraguay. The torture was directed by Américo Peña-Irala, the inspector general of police, who wanted information about the victim’s father, Dr. Joel Filártiga, a physician, artist, and longtime critic of the regime of General Alfredo Stroessner. When Joelito died unexpectedly from cardiac arrest, Peña-Irala and the other officers made the murder look like a crime of passion. The body was taken to Peña-Irala’s house and placed in the bed of the 17-year-old daughter of Peña-Irala’s mistress. The daughter’s husband was then beaten until he agreed to the story that he had found Joelito in bed with his wife and murdered him. Such a crime would be excused by Paraguayan law.

   The Filártigas, however, knew what had happened and who was responsible. Peña-Irala, who lived next door to the Filártigas, had summoned Joelito’s sister, Dolly, to collect the body, ordering her to keep quiet about the incident. Dr. Filártiga easily recognized the marks of torture—he himself had been tortured by the police. And three independent autopsies revealed that Joelito had been whipped and beaten and that his death was caused by electric shocks. Far from keeping quiet, the Filártigas displayed Joelito’s tortured body in public, drawing so much public sympathy that 2,000 people attended his funeral. They also tried to bring murder charges against Peña-Irala, but nothing came of the case. Their lawyer was arrested and then disbarred, they received threatening phone calls, and Dolly and her mother spent a day in jail. In June 1978 Peña-Irala fled to Brooklyn, New York, where Dolly tracked him down. She was joined by her father, and in 1979 they sued Peña-Irala under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which allows noncitizens to file suit in U.S. courts for human-rights abuses that violate international law. The law, passed by the first Congress, was intended to counter piracy. On 14 May 1979 a federal judge ruled that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction but left the way open for appeal. On 30 June 1980, in Filártiga v. Peña-Irala (28 U.S.C. § 1350), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York recognized the Filártigas’ right to sue, ruling that state-sponsored torture violated international law. Two years later, the same court awarded the Filártigas $10 million in damages.

   Peña-Irala was deported, and the Filártigas never collected—suing dictators or torturers in U.S. courts seldom results in money. Nevertheless, the Filártigas’ main concern was not money, but justice. The story of the Filártigas is told in Richard Alan White’s book Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights and in the documentary One Man’s War.