Han Kim v. Democratic People's Republic of Korea, No. 13-7147 (D.C. Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CaseThe family of Reverend Dong Shik Kim filed suit against the North Korean government, by invoking the terrorism exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1604, alleging that it abducted him, confined him to a political penal-labor colony, tortured him, and killed him. The court reversed the district court's denial of plaintiffs' motion for a default judgment. The court concluded that admissible evidence demonstrates that North Korea abducted Reverend Kim, that it invariably tortures and kills political prisoners, and that through terror and intimidation it prevents any information about those crimes from escaping to the outside world. Requiring a plaintiff to produce direct, first-hand evidence of the victim's torture and murder would thwart the purpose of the terrorism exception: holding state sponsors of terrorism accountable for torture and extrajudicial killing. Accordingly, the court found plaintiffs' evidence sufficiently "satisfactory" to require a default judgment.
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