HAN KIM v. DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA Cite as 774 F.3d 1044 (D.C. Cir. 2014) Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on official’s family’s claims under the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA); abduction of religious official was well-documented, and experts on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea testified that political prisoners sent to the camp at which religious official was held were routinely tortured and starved to death. 28 U.S.C.A. §§ 1605A(g), 1608(e). Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, (No. 1:09–cv–00648). Asher Perlin argued the cause for appellants. With him on the brief was Robert J. Tolchin. Meir Katz entered an appearance. Robert P. LoBue argued the cause for amicus curiae Human Rights First. With him on the brief was Gabor Rona. Before: TATEL and WILKINS, Circuit Judges, and EDWARDS, Senior Circuit Judge. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL. TATEL, Circuit Judge: Relying on the ‘‘terrorism exception’’ to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the family of Reverend Dong Shik Kim sued the North Korean government alleging that it abducted him, confined him to a kwan-li-so—a political penal-labor colony—tortured him, and, ultimately, killed him. When North Korea failed to appear, the Kims asked the district court for a default judgment pursuant to the provision of the Act that authorizes a court to enter judgment if the plaintiff ‘‘establishes his claim or right to relief by evidence that is satisfactory to the Court.’’ The district court denied that motion because the Kims 1045 had failed to produce ‘‘first-hand evidence’’ of what happened to the Reverend. We reverse. Admissible record 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, firsthand evidence of the victim’s torture and murder would thus thwart the purpose of the terrorism exception: holding state sponsors of terrorism accountable for torture and extrajudicial killing. In these circumstances, we find the Kims’ evidence sufficiently ‘‘satisfactory’’ to require a default judgment. I. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) generally immunizes foreign governments from suit in the United States. See 28 U.S.C. § 1604. Truly heinous acts, however, can negate that immunity. Under the statute’s ‘‘terrorism exception,’’ state sponsors of terrorism may be liable in federal court for torture and extrajudicial killing. See id. § 1605A(a). The FSIA defines those substantive offenses by reference to the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA). See id. § 1605A(h)(7) (citing id. § 1350 note). That Act defines torture as ‘‘any act, directed against an individual in the offender’s custody or physical control, by which severe pain or suffering TTT is intentionally inflicted on that individual for such purposes as obtaining from that individual or a third person information or a confession, punishing that individual TTT intimidating or coercing that individual or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind.’’ TVPA, Pub.L. No. 102–256, 106 Stat. 73, 73 (1992). An extrajudicial killing is ‘‘a deliberated killing not authorized by