Fact Sheet: Human Rights Violators Investigations
June 22, 2012
Human rights violators, including those who have participated in war crimes and acts of genocide, torture, extrajudicial killing, violations of religious freedom, and other acts of persecution, frequently seek to evade justice by seeking shelter in the United States. These individuals will frequently assume fraudulent identities to enter the country, seeking to blend into American society and communities.
ICE places a high priority on targeting these serious offenders through its Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center. The following are examples of recent success stories in targeting human rights violators.
Significant Success Stories
Former Bosnian-Serb Police Commander Removed
Dejan Radojkovic, a former Bosnian-Serb police commander wanted in his native country for his participation in crimes related to the July 1995 genocide at Srebrenica, was deported by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers in May 2012. The former Las Vegas resident was turned over to authorities of the Bosnian State Court’s War Crimes Chamber. He reportedly played a role in crimes that took place during July 1995 when Bosnian Serb forces overran a contingent of United Nations peacekeepers. This event drove tens of thousands of Bosnian-Muslim civilians from the Srebrenica safe area and resulted in the execution of more than 7,000 Bosnian-Muslim men and boys. Authorities allege Radojkovic used his position as a platoon commander in the Special Police Brigade to aid in carrying out these crimes. Specifically, prosecutors charge that Radojkovic and his platoon rounded up nearly 200 Bosnian-Muslim men in the Konjevic Polje region, and then, assisted in their transfer to locations where they were executed.
Radojkovic entered the United States in 1999. After a joint investigation, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents and Bosnian authorities linked Radojkovic to possible war crimes. He was arrested by HSI special agents at his Las Vegas residence in January 2009. Ten months later, an immigration judge ordered Radojkovic deported on multiple grounds, including a finding that he "ordered…and/or otherwise participated in extrajudicial killing."
Former ICE Subject Sentenced to 6,060 Years in Prison in Guatemala
In March 2012, a Guatemalan Court sentenced Pedro Pimentel Rios to more than 6,000 years in prison for his role in the deaths of 201 villagers at Dos Erres in December 1982. Rios was a member of the Guatemalan Army’s Special Forces known as the Kaibiles. This largely symbolic sentence represents the maximum sentence possible under Guatemalan law for each of the 201 murders, plus an additional 30 years for his participation in crimes against humanity.
In 2009, HSI special agents arrested Pimentel Rios at his residence in Orange County, Calif., and he was subsequently placed in immigration removal proceedings in Los Angeles. He was ruled deportable based upon his participation in the extrajudicial killings at Dos Erres. The judge's ruling capped an intensive legal effort by ICE to gain Pimentel Rios' removal from the United States based on his participation in the Dos Erres massacre. In July 2011, ERO officers successfully removed Pedro Pimentel Rios from the United States to Guatemala City, where he was taken into custody by Guatemalan judicial authorities. To date, Pimentel Rios is one of four former Kaibiles linked to the massacre found residing in the United States.
Former El Salvadoran Officer Ordered Removed
In March 2012, ERO officers removed former El Salvadoran military officer Carlos Napoleón Medina-Garay to San Salvador, El Salvador. The United Nations (UN) alleges that he committed human rights violations.
A 1993 UN Security Council report accuses Medina-Garay of committing human rights violations while serving as a captain in the El Salvadoran military. According to the report, beginning March 3, 1981, Medina-Garay and the soldiers under his command were part of a campaign in northern El Junquillo canton, Morazán Department, El Salvador to execute men, women and children. The commission found that Medina-Garay ordered the executions.
On Jan. 17, 2012, ICE issued a notice to appear in immigration court, charging that Medina-Garay was inadmissible to the United States. He was taken into custody by ERO officers and HSI special agents at his home in Woodbridge, Va., that same day.
Medina-Garay's various applications for benefits under the Immigration and Nationalization Act were denied. His most recent application was voluntarily withdrawn and an immigration judge ordered him to leave the United States.
HSI special agents led the investigation that subsequently led to his removal by ERO officers in Washington, D.C. ICE's Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor Human Rights Law Section and HSI Attaché El Salvador supported the investigation.
Liberian Human Rights Violator Removed
In February 2012, George Saigbe Boley, formerly of Hilton, N.Y., was ordered removed to Monrovia, Liberia. This was the first removal order obtained by ICE under the authorities of the Child Soldiers Accountability Act of 2008. The Act outlines that the recruitment and use of child soldiers is grounds for inadmissibility into the United States. Boley, the leader of the Liberia Peace Council during the Liberian Civil War, was found to have recruited and used child soldiers in military operations undertaken by the council. Boley was also found to have engaged in serious human rights abuses against the civilian population. Council members committed rape and murder against civilians at various times during the conflict. ERO officers successfully removed Boley to Liberia in March 2012.
Rwandan Deported to Serve Sentence for Role in 1994 Genocide
In December 2011, Marie Claire Mukeshimana was removed by ERO officers to her native Rwanda. According to an arrest warrant issued by Rwanda's Gacaca Court, which can exercise jurisdiction over events from the 1994 genocide, Mukeshimana was responsible for the death of a child in the town of Save, Rwanda. Following her conviction by the Gacaca Court, she fled the country.
In 2010, Mukeshimana was apprehended attempting to enter the United States on a travel visa. ICE then placed her in removal proceedings. In June 2011, an immigration judge ordered her removed from the United States to Rwanda, a decision which was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals in November 2011. Mukeshimana was then removed to Kigali, Rwanda, where ICE turned her over to the custody of the Rwandan National Police.
Argentinean Torture Suspect Removed
In December 2010, ERO officers escorted Juan Miguel Mendez to Buenos Aires where he was transferred to the custody of the Argentinean government.
In June 2009, ICE special agents arrested Mendez, a former federal Argentine police official, in northern Virginia after he was found living without lawful status in the United States. In March 2006, a magistrate in Buenos Aires, Argentina, issued an arrest warrant for Mendez for his involvement in torture, disappearances and extrajudicial killings in connection with at least two clandestine detention centers that operated in Buenos Aires during the so-called "Dirty War."
Mendez was allegedly involved with the detention, torture and disappearance of detainees from two clandestine detention facilities between 1976 and 1979. During this period in Argentina, human rights related organizations estimate that as many as 30,000 suspected opponents of the former ruling military junta were murdered or otherwise disappeared. In November 2009, Mendez was ordered removed from the United States. He tried to appeal that decision, but a judge denied his request.
Maximum Sentence of former Guatemalan Soldier Upheld
In September 2010, Gilberto Jordan, a formerly naturalized United States citizen, received the statutory maximum 10-year prison sentence for fraudulently obtaining his U.S. citizenship. As part of the sentence, he was stripped of this citizenship. In July 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal by Jordan to have his prison sentence reduced.
In the early 1980s, Jordan was a member of an elite Guatemalan Army Special Forces unit known as the Kaibiles. In December 1982, Jordan was one of 20 Kaibiles who entered the remote Guatemalan village of Dos Erres where they assaulted, raped and murdered at least 170 men, women and children over a two-day period. In May 2010, Jordan was arrested by HSI special agents in West Palm Beach, Fla., following an 18-month investigation into his membership in the Guatemalan Army and his direct participation in war crimes. Following his arrest, Jordan pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully procuring naturalized citizenship. Pursuant to his admission of guilt, Jordan acknowledged his service in the Kaibiles and his personal involvement in committing the first murder of the Dos Erres massacre by throwing a baby into a well.
Former Cape Verdean Prison Warden Pleads Guilty
ICE successfully removed Carlos de Graca Lopes, a national of Cape Verde, back to his native country in September 2010 after he completed a three-year prison sentence.
Lopes was formerly a prison warden in Cape Verde, but was dismissed from his position in 2006 after allegations surfaced that he abused and tortured prisoners. An indictment was issued in Cape Verde for multiple criminal acts, including torture. At that point, Lopes fraudulently obtained a visa and fled to the United States.
HSI special agents in Brockton, Mass., apprehended Lopes and placed him into removal proceedings. He was criminally charged and subsequently pleaded guilty to 13 counts of visa fraud, false statements and perjury. In handing Lopes a 36-month prison sentence, the Chief Judge of the Federal District Court of Massachusetts specifically reflected that, "It is very important to send the message that the United States will not be a safe or cost-free haven for those who are alleged to have abused human rights."
Suspected Bosnian War Criminal Removed
In April 2010, ICE effected the removal of Marko Boskic back to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was subsequently taken into custody by officials from the Office of the Prosecutor for the Bosnian State Court War Crimes Chamber. In July 2006, Boskic was convicted of two counts of visa fraud in Federal District Court in Boston.
Boskic was the target of an ICE-led investigation pertaining to his direct involvement in the killings of several hundred Bosnian Muslim men who were murdered on July 16, 1995, at a communal farm in Branjevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. This crime is connected to the wider executions of more than 7,000 men and boys that occurred following the capture of the UN designated safe-area of Srebrenica on July 10, 1995, by military forces under the command of General Ratko Mladic.
Working in close cooperation with investigators from the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, Mass., HSI and FBI agents were able to catalog his service in the notorious 10th Sabotage Detachment of the Army of the Republika Srpska. Following his apprehension in Boston, Boskic admitted to both his military service with this unit and that he was personally responsible for the murders of several dozen prisoners at the Branjevo Farm on the July 16. He was convicted in July 2006 and sentenced to 63 months in prison.
Peruvian Human Rights Violator Extradited from the United States
On July 14, 2011, former Peruvian Army Major Ricardo Telmo Hurtado-Hurtado was extradited back to Lima, Peru where he is charged for his role in the August 1985 Accomarca Massacre . Hurtado was the target of an ICE investigation that began in late 2006. The agency received information from Interpol officials in Lima that indicated he was involved in significant human rights violations and was possibly hiding in the United States.
In August 1985, while serving as a lieutenant in the Peruvian Army, Hurtado ordered soldiers under his command to gather and kill 69 men, women, and children from a remote mountain village in Accomarca, Peru. When word of this massacre become public and an investigation was undertaken, he personally led back a smaller group of soldiers and proceeded to kill seven additional people who either witnessed or survived the initial crime. He was never jailed, and in 1995 was pardoned as part of a larger grant of amnesty by the Peruvian government. In 2002, the Peruvian Supreme Court rescinded this amnesty grant after finding it to be unconstitutional. Following this development, Hurtado departed Peru.
An investigation by ICE, that began in late 2006 after receiving information from INTERPOL officials that indicated he may possibly be hiding in the United States, revealed that after leaving Peru, he entered the United States by fraudulently obtaining a visitor (B-2) visa. After his visa expired, Hurtado remained in South Florida. In April 2007, he was arrested by HSI special agents and charged with visa fraud. He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in prison. While serving his sentence and pending extradition from the United States, a group of survivors and other victims from Accomarca sued Hurtado for civil damages under the provisions of the Torture Victim Protection Act. A federal judge subsequently found Hurtado liable for his role in the murders and entered a $37 million dollar judgment against him. In 2012, he accepted responsibility in Peru for his role in the deaths of at least 31 villagers.
Bosnian Removed to Face War Crimes
In January 2010, following another complex multinational and multi-jurisdictional investigation undertaken by ICE, Nedjo Ikonic was removed from the United States to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he was taken into custody by officials from the Office of the Prosecutor of the Bosnian State Court War Crimes Chamber. He has since been charged by the court for his role in acts of genocide. Ikonic, formerly residing in Greenfield, Wis., previously pleaded guilty to two counts of visa fraud, and had completed a one-year prison sentence.
In September 2006, ICE opened an investigation after receiving information from investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that Ikonic, the former commander of a Special Police Company of the Republika Srpska, was present in the United States. The company that Ikonic commanded is alleged to have participated in the capture and killing of hundreds of Bosnian prisoners following the fall of the United Nations designated safe-area of Srebrenica in July 1995.
ICE, working in concert with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Milwaukee, and investigators from both the ICTY and the Office of the Prosecutor of the State Court in Sarajevo, determined that Ikonic obtained admission into the United States by fraudulently omitting his police service during the 1992-1995 conflict in Bosnia when applying to enter the United States.
He subsequently pleaded guilty to two counts of visa fraud in a U.S. District Court and received a one-year prison sentence. Following the completion of that sentence, he was remanded back into ICE custody and removed.
Liberian/US Citizen Torture Suspect Sentenced to 97 years
In July 2010, a three-judge panel from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied all grounds of appeals related to the torture convictions of Charles Taylor, Jr. Charles Taylor, Jr. commanded the notorious Anti-Terrorism Unit that suppressed opposition to his father's regime through brutal acts of torture and murder.
In 2009, Taylor was sentenced to 97 years in prison following his earlier conviction in a Federal District Court in Miami on six counts of committing acts of torture and conspiracy to commit torture in Liberia. These convictions represent the first successful application of the federal criminal torture statute (18 USC 2340a) since it was enacted into law in 1994.
This ICE-led investigation was groundbreaking in the scope of both the international and intergovernmental agency coordination needed to ensure a successful indictment and prosecution. This included working in close partnership with the Department of Justice Domestic Security Section in Washington D.C. and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of State-Diplomatic Security Service and the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Rwandan Removed for Involvement in 1994 Genocide
In January 2011, ICE removed Jean-Marie Vianney Mudahinyuka, to Kigali, Rwanda, where he is wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes. Mudahinyuka illegally entered the United States in 2000 by concealing his true identity to an immigration officer. After settling in the Chicago area, six witnesses identified Mudahinyuka as a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide, and one witness allegedly saw him commit murder and rape. He was arrested by ICE in May 2004, and later convicted of immigration fraud and assaulting a federal officer. At the completion of his sentence, he was remanded back into ERO custody and ultimately removed from the United States. Upon his arrival in Kigali, ICE turned Mudahinyuka over to the custody of the Rwandan National Police.
Learn more about the ICE Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.
