By
Deborah Francois, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic &
Sheng Li, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic &
Alaina Varvaloucas, Yale Law School, Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at 5:04pm
After a fruitless five-year battle in U.S. federal courts to hold accountable those who unlawfully detained and tortured her son José Padilla, Estela Lebron today sought to have their claims heard by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). You can read today’s filing here.
Padilla is the only American citizen to have been seized on U.S. soil, detained as an enemy combatant, kept in incommunicado military detention, and tortured. Until U.S. courts stop using national security arguments to bar Bush-era torture survivors from seeking remedies for abuses, victims, like Padilla and Lebronwill have to resort to international bodies for any chance at redress.
