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South Florida Sun-SentinelJudge holds ex-Peruvian officer financially responsible for massacre
Vanessa Blum
March 5, 2008 6:23 PM
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
(MCT)
A former Peruvian army officer should pay $37 million in damages to two survivors of Peru's infamous Accomarca massacre of 1985, a federal judge in Miami has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan on Tuesday ordered former Peruvian Major Telmo Ricardo Hurtado Hurtado to pay $26 million to Teofila Ochoa Lizarbe and $11 million to Cirila Pulido Baldeon for their suffering and the loss of family members who were killed during the massacre.
A 2007 lawsuit accuses Hurtado of leading a group of soldiers who slaughtered 69 unarmed civilians living near the village of Accomarca in the Andean highlands of Peru. The suit invokes a law that allows non-citizens to sue human rights abusers in U.S. courts.
Ochoa lost her mother and five younger siblings. Pulido lost her mother and brother. Both women, who were 12 years old at the time, testified Feb. 11 at a trial to determine damages.Their attorney, Almudena Bernabeu, called the judgment ''an important success in the struggle against impunity being waged by the Peruvian people.''
Hurtado, 46, did not contest the suit, leading to an automatic judgment against him. Immigration officials arrested him last year in Miami Beach, where he was living, and want him deported to Peru. He remains in U.S. custody. It is unclear whether he has assets in the United States that could be used to pay damages.
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http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=NATIONAL&ID=565257867252596780
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