$10 million awarded in Romero assassination case.

In a case one lawyer said "builds on the efforts of people around the world to counter impunity with accountability," a U.S. federal judge awarded $10 million in civil damages for the 1980 assassination of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, an outspoken critic of human rights abuses in El Salvador.

Retired Salvadoran air force captain Alvaro Saravia, who had been living in California, was ordered to pay damages to a Romero relative whose name has been kept private. But Saravia fled his home after the suit was filed in 2003, and it's not expected that the damages will be paid, Catholic News Service reports.

Large monetary judgments are "a deterrent to human rights abusers who see the U.S. as a retirement home, as a safe haven," said Nicholas van Aelstyn, lead lawyer for the unnamed plantiff. "Human rights violators ought not find asylum in the United States."

Van Aelstyn pointed to other cases that are addressing human rights violations worldwide, including those of Chilean Gen. Augusto Pinochet and ex-Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.

The judge ruled that Saravia was an "aider, abettor, and co-conspirator" in Romero's murder by hiring the getaway driver and paying the assassin about $200. Evidence in the case included Saravia's diary, which showed that the plot to kill Romero was financed by wealthy landowners.