The second investigating court of San Salvador sent to trial on Monday 11 accused of having orchestrated the massacre of six Jesuit fathers – including five Spaniards – and two Salvadoran women in 1989, including former president Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994) .
Defense lawyer Gabriel Solorzano explained, after completing the preliminary hearing that began last week, that the court ordered the trial for the crimes of murder, procedural fraud and receiving stolen property. Solorzano, who is defending three retired soldiers in the case, added that the arrest of five absent defendants had also been ordered.
They are Cristiani, former deputy Rodolfo Parker and retired military men Joaquín Cerna, Juan Rafael Bustillo and Juan Orlando Zepeda. Conditional release was maintained for the five defendants who appeared at the hearing. The soldiers being 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 clerics and two women were murdered by an elite Salvadoran army commando on the campus of the Jesuit Central American University (UCA) in the early hours of November 16, 1989, in the midst of the largest guerrilla offensive on record 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 Spanish National Court sentenced former Deputy Minister of Public Security Inocente Montano in 2020 to 133 years and four months of prison. Montano is currently serving this sentence in Spain.
The annulment of a 1993 amnesty law, due to a 2016 constitutional ruling, allowed the process to be reopened in 2017 at the request of the Central American University (UCA). However, several appeals presented by the defense delayed the start of the investigative procedure and in 2020 the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court closed the case.
A new protective ruling from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) ordered the reopening of the criminal case 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 “UCA Martyrs” are remembered for their fight for the most disadvantaged sectors and for human rights in the context of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992), which ultimately resulted in 75 000 dead and between 8,000 and 10,000 missing.
