Foley Hoag Partner Jason Hipp, along with the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), achieved a victory for their client Gert Kuiper, the brother of a murdered Dutch journalist, when a unanimous three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that former foreign officials cannot resort to sovereign immunity as a shield against allegations of torture, slavery, arbitrary detention, and extrajudicial killing.

In October 2024, Hipp and CJA filed a complaint on behalf of Gert Kuiper against Col. Mario Reyes Mena for his alleged role in the killing of Jan Kuiper, Gert’s brother. Jan was one of four Dutch journalists who were ambushed and killed by members of El Salvador’s military in Chalatenango, El Salvador on March 17, 1982, during the civil war in that country.

Reyes Mena had asserted that he was immune from liability for these claims under common law principles of sovereign immunity by virtue of his status as a foreign government official at the time of the acts. A lower court previously rejected that argument, and the Fourth Circuit has now affirmed.  In addition to leading the briefing, Hipp argued the appeal. 

“This decision in the Fourth Circuit brings us one step closer to accountability,” said Hipp. “It upheld the court’s clear precedent on immunity, denying former foreign officials the opportunity to evade accountability for grave crimes like extrajudicial killing.”