Foley Hoag LLP, together with the Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), assisted Joan Jara, widow of the late-Víctor Jara, and his daughters, Amanda and Manuela, in developing the key evidence that the U.S. government used to strip Lieutenant Pedro Pablo Barrientos Núñez, a military officer serving under Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, of his U.S. citizenship. In a 2016 civil action brought by the Jara family, Barrientos was found by a U.S. jury to be responsible for the torture and extrajudicial killing of the late folk musician and political activist, Victor Jara, 50 years ago. 

On July 14, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida issued an order granting the motion for judgment on the U.S. Department of Justice’s complaint seeking the denaturalization of Barrientos.

The case stems from the torture and execution of Víctor Jara, an outspoken advocate for social equality and an advocate for the working class. Jara was killed shortly after General Augusto Pinochet instituted a coup d’etat in 1973 to overthrow Chile’s democratically elected government and ushered the country into a 15-year period marred by the disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial killing of tens of thousands of Chileans. 

Among those responsible for Jara’s torture and execution was Pedro Pablo Barrientos Núñez. In a civil action under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) and Alien Tort Statute (ATS), co-led by Foley Hoag’s Christina Hioureas together with attorneys at CJA and Mark Beckett of Beckett Law, Barrientos was found liable in 2016 by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida under the TVPA for his involvement and was ordered to pay Jara’s estate and family $28 million in damages. 

In 2016, Foley Hoag and CJA began assisting the Jara family in seeking the extradition of Barrientos to Chile to stand criminal trial. Proceedings to denaturalize Barrientos were also initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice. In the latter, the District Court took judicial notice of testimony presented in the TVPA/ATS civil action and concluded that Barrientos had obtained citizenship in the United States through willful concealment of his involvement in the Pinochet military regime.

The Foley Hoag team working on the efforts to return Barrientos to Chile to face justice included Christina Hioureas and Yoni Bard, retired partner Nicholas Theodorou, as well as co-counsel with the Center for Justice and Accountability attorneys Claret Vargas and Daniel McLaughlin. The team involved in the 2016 TVPA/ATS action was co-led by Christina Hioureas, current and former CJA attorneys, Daniel McLaughlin, Almudena Bernabeu (now with Guernica 37), Nushin Sarkarati (now at Atlantic Council), Kathy Roberts (now at Partners in Justice International), and Mark Beckett of Beckett Law.