Court Upholds Denial of Asylum to Salvadoran Politician

Court Upholds Denial of Asylum to Salvadoran Politician

Judges Say Silva-Pereira, Implicated in 2007 Murders, Was Not Credible in Persecution Claim

Metropolitan News-Enterprise
Friday, July 8, 2016
By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer


The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld immigration officials’ decision to deport a former Salvadoran political figure to Nicaragua.

The panel upheld findings by the Board of Immigration Appeals that Roberto Carlos Silva-Pereira was not credible when he testified about alleged incidents of persecution that he suffered in El Salvador, and that he is not eligible for asylum because he was complicit in the murder of three Salvadorans attending the Central American Parliament in Guatemala in February 2007, along with their driver.

The court also said that the Convention Against Torture does not apply, because there was no evidence Silva would be tortured in Nicaragua, the country to which the immigration judge ordered his removal. The judges declined to consider whether he would be tortured in El Salvador, since he was not ordered returned there.

Arrested by FBI

Silva was arrested in Orange County in October 2007 by FBI agents. El Salvador, whose Congress had lifted his legislative immunity, was seeking his extradition on corruption and money-laundering charges. He had allegedly become one of El Salvador’s wealthiest men, as his construction business was earning 30 to 40 percent profits off government contracts. The country’s attorney general, however, claimed he had secured contracts through bribery.

More:
http://www.metnews.com/articles/2016/silva070816.htm

[center]



[/center]