http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/international/americas/08salvador.html

January 8, 2006

Appeals Court, Reversing Itself, Holds 2 Salvadoran Generals Liable in Torture Case

By JULIA PRESTON

A federal appeals court has reversed its own ruling and upheld a $54.6 million jury verdict against two retired generals from El Salvador who were held responsible in a 2002 trial for the torture of three Salvadorans during the country's civil war in the 1980's.

The opinion, issued Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, was a surprising turn in decade-long efforts by American human rights groups to punish abuses that occurred during the conflict between the United States-backed security forces and leftist guerrillas in El Salvador.

A three-judge appeals panel acted without prompting from lawyers for either side to overturn a ruling it issued on Feb. 28. 2005, that nullified the trial verdict against the two generals, José Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova.

The new appeals opinion seems likely to be the decisive step in years of litigation against the generals. During the war, Mr. Garcia and Mr. Vides Casanova served as defense minister, the highest post in the military, with strong support from the United States.

They have been living in South Florida since 1989. In a separate civil trial in Florida in 2000, they were acquitted of responsibility for the killings of four American churchwomen by soldiers in El Salvador in 1980.

The three plaintiffs in the second trial, held in West Palm Beach, suffered lasting injuries from torture by troops under the generals' command.

In its initial ruling, the appeals panel threw out the jury verdict, finding that the district court had improperly extended the 10-year statute of limitations that applied in the case. The claims were brought under the Torture Victim Protection Act, a controversial law that human rights groups have used to bring notoriously violent foreign leaders to face justice in American courts.

But on June 24, 2005, the appeals judges announced in a letter that they had made two factual errors in their opinion, incorrectly recording both the date when the case was first filed - actually May 11, 1999 - and the date when General Vides Casanova stepped down as defense minister - May 31, 1989.

Using the correct dates and re-examining the trial record, the judges decided to agree with the district court that the case was filed within the statute of limitations. The panel concluded that the statute should begin to run in 1992, when the government and the rebels signed a peace accord that ended the war.

Before that, the judges wrote, "the very regime against whom the plaintiffs leveled their accusations remained intent on maintaining its power at any cost and acted with impunity to so do." The three judges were Gerald B. Tjoflat, Edward E. Carnes, and Anne C. Conway.

Kurt Klaus Jr., who represented both retired generals, said he was dumbfounded by the reversal. "I have never, ever heard of such a thing," he said. "I am so shocked, I feel like quitting my practice and moving to El Salvador to grow coca and coffee."

He said he would consult with the former generals to see if they wanted to pursue further appeals. He said both clients had been left essentially bankrupt by legal costs.

"In the war against communism, they did what the United States government wanted them to do and paid them to do," Mr. Klaus said.

Mr. Vides Casanova has placed about $270,000 in an escrow account awaiting the outcome of the appeals, said Moira Feeney, a spokeswoman for the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco, which represented the defendants. [Correction Appended]

Neris Gonzalez, a Salvadoran Roman Catholic church worker who testified at the trial that she endured 12 days of torture, said in a statement that the decision showed "that the Salvadoran military bears responsibility for what we, as a people, suffered."

Correction:

An article on Sunday about a federal appeals court ruling that reversed its own decision and upheld a $54.6 million jury-trial verdict against two retired Salvadoran generals found responsible for torture during the 1980's civil war misstated the role of the Center for Justice and Accountability, a human rights law group. It represented the plaintiffs - the torture victims - not the defendants.