The Attorney General, Rodolfo Barrios, pointed out that the claim to charge the Paraguayan State US$ 39 million, to compensate a crime of more than 4 decades ago, is not only a constitutional absurdity, but also simple logic.
He thus referred to the lawsuit filed by two Paraguayan lawyers, Gregorio Daniel Acosta and Jorge Nicanor Galeano, who say they received power of attorney from the late doctor Joel Filártiga, who had sued the State for compensation for the kidnapping, torture and murder of his son. , Joelito Filártiga, at the hands of former commissioner Américo Peña. He had discovered that his wife had an extramarital affair with the teenager. Days later, an alleged confessed perpetrator of the crime “appeared”: Hugo Duarte Arredondo. The man said that the young man got involved with his wife, and that the crime was a derivation of it. However, in the police and justice system at that time, it was vociferously true that Duarte Arredondo’s was a montage, concocted by the dictatorship, to try to acquit the commissioner.
Peña was denounced before the courts, but the Stroessner dictatorship sent him on a “mission” to the northern country. Joel Filártiga’s daughter, Dolly, also decided to travel to the US. There she ratified the complaint, and the US justice system ruled against the police officer in 1986, stating that the Paraguayan State is obliged to compensate the Filártiga family , paying an indemnity of US$ 10 million.
In 2019, Dr. Filártiga allegedly gave up his rights in favor of the lawyers, to continue the collection trial. Now the lawyers demand to charge 4 times more.
Attorney Barrios indicated his “hope” that the Court restores the rights of the Paraguayan State, and thus avoid the ferocious bloodletting that would imply having to pay such a sum of money. Although he himself insisted—- that he is not obligated to pay.
