The handsome actor, who appeared on a telenovela with salt and pepper locks under a baseball cap marked “POLICE,” seemed familiar to Venezuelan exiles who watched the show.
It wasn’t long before he was recognized as the lieutenant colonel who ran a notoriously repressive military unit in Barquisimeto, Venezuela.
Rafael Quero Silva, a former officer in Venezuela’s National Guard, was once accused by dozens of people and several human rights organizations of ordering violent military raids and the torture of detainees who were arrested after massive crackdowns on antigovernment protests in 2013 and 2014.
At some point after the protests ended, Mr. Quero Silva left the national guard.
Then, in 2018, Venezuelans living in the United States discovered that he had a new life in the Miami suburbs as a television extra on the Spanish-language soap opera “My Perfect Family.”
On Tuesday, five people who say they were tortured, shot or beaten by soldiers under Mr. Quero Silva’s command filed a claim in U.S. court under the Torture Victim Protection Act. The 1991 law allows the filing of civil suits in federal court against people who committed torture or extrajudicial killings while acting in an official capacity in another country. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages, although it is unclear whether Mr. Quero Silva has any assets.
The civil lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of Florida, would mark the first time a Venezuelan military officer would stand trial in the United States for abuses carried out under the government of President Nicolás Maduro in the more than 10 years since he took power, the lawyers said. The plaintiffs say they hope their case can serve as an important symbolic step for those who were abused or wrongfully detained under the Maduro regime.
“We would have the first case ever, despite all the attempts to bring a little accountability for what has been going on for over a decade,” said Almudena Bernabeu, a London-based lawyer with the law firm Guernica 37 Centre, which specializes in human rights cases. Her firm, along with the Miami-based firm McDermott Will & Schulte, represents the plaintiffs.
But before the lawsuit is ever heard, Mr. Quero Silva, 55, could be expelled from the United States.
He was arrested by ICE officials in March and now sits in immigration detention in South Florida awaiting deportation after being denied bail, according to U.S. government records. The Department of Homeland Security declined to say why he was detained.
Mr. Quero Silva’s family and his lawyer, Eduardo X. Pereira, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The New York Times attempted to contact them through various means: leaving a note at the South Florida address listed as Mr. Quero Silva’s residence, text messages and voice mail messages to his wife, and reaching out to the lawyer’s office via telephone, email, as well as contacting Mr. Pereira’s wife.
