The Second Investigative Court of San Salvador this Monday sent to trial 11 accused of masterminding the massacre of six Jesuit fathers—five of them Spanish—and two Salvadoran women in 1989, including former president Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994).
Defense lawyer Gabriel Solorzano explained, after finishing the preliminary hearing that began last week, that the court ordered the trial for the crimes of murder, procedural fraud and concealment. Solorzano, who defends three retired soldiers in this case, added that the arrest of five absent defendants was also ordered.
These are Cristiani, former deputy Rodolfo Parker and retired soldiers Joaquín Cerna, Juan Rafael Bustillo and Juan Orlando Zepeda. Conditional release was maintained for the five defendants who appeared at the hearing. The soldiers prosecuted are Rafael Humberto Larios, Carlos Camilo Hernández, Nelson Iván López, Inocente Orlando Montano, Óscar Alberto León Linares and Manuel Antonio Ermenegildo Rivas Mejíía.
The religious and the two women were murdered by an elite commando of the Salvadoran Army on the campus of the Jesuit Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in the early hours of November 16, 1989, in the midst of the largest guerrilla offensive recorded during the civil war. Salvadoran.
For this crime, only Colonel Guillermo Benavides is imprisoned in El Salvador, sentenced to 30 years in prison, while the National Court of Spain sentenced former Vice Minister of Public Security Inocente Montano in 2020 to 133 years and four months in prison. Montano is currently serving this sentence in Spain.
The annulment of a 1993 amnesty law, due to a 2016 constitutional ruling, allowed the reopening of the process in 2017 at the request of the Central American University (UCA). However, several appeals presented by the defense delayed the beginning of the investigation proceedings and in 2020 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court closed the case.
A new protection ruling from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) ordered the criminal case to be reopened in 2022. The victims were the Spaniards Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno and the Salvadoran Joaquín López, the UCA worker Elba and her 16-year-old daughter, Celina Ramos, both Salvadorans.
The so-called “Martyrs of the UCA” are remembered for their fight for the most disadvantaged sectors and human rights in the context of the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992), which ultimately left 75,000 dead and between 8,000 and 10,000 missing.
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