Spain confirms ruling against Orlando Montano for murder of Jesuits

Salvadoran ex-colonel convicted of murder of Jesuits 3:00

(CNN Spanish) -

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Spain ratified the sentence of 133 years and four months in prison against the retired Salvadoran colonel Inocente Orlando Montano for the "terrorist murder" of five Spanish priests on 16 November 1989, during the civil war in El Salvador.

The magistrates dismissed the cassation appeal presented by Montano's defense, in which he pointed out the disrespect for the right to presume innocence.

He also claimed the right to an impartial judge and questioned whether he was given operational capacity when he was only performing administrative functions, among other arguments.

Montano has denied in the past any responsibility for the events for which he has been convicted, assuring that he was not aware that the murder of the five Jesuits had been discussed in the government and attributing the deaths to the then guerrilla of the Farabundo Martí Front of National Liberation (FMLN).

Retired Colonel Orlando Montano, former Deputy Minister of Defense and Public Security of El Salvador, now 77 years old, will only have to serve a maximum of 30 years in prison according to the sentence.

This is the limit established by Spanish law.

The former official had been in preventive detention since 2017, when he was extradited from the United States to Spain.

He is the only Salvadoran military man tried and convicted in Spain for the crime of the religious.

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In El Salvador, retired Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, sentenced in 1992 to 30 years in prison for this case, was released after the approval of the Amnesty Law in 1993. On February 5, 2016, he was arrested by order of the Spanish judge Eloy Velasco.

Following the declaration of unconstitutionality of the Amnesty Law in July 2016, a court upheld the conviction and he is being held in a prison in El Salvador.

Benavides's lawyers have insisted on his innocence and have requested, without success, the release of the retired colonel.

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador declared last October the absolute nullity of the criminal process against the alleged intellectual authors of the murder of the five Spanish Jesuits, plus another Salvadoran and two of their collaborators.

With that ruling, the magistrates signed the final dismissals and the legal effects that were originally issued in favor of the accused.

The Jesuit priests were allegedly assassinated by an elite group of the Army in the midst of what the FMLN called the "To the Top" offensive.

Everything happened in the facilities of the Central American University, according to the report of the Truth Commission, prepared in 1993 with the support of the United Nations.

The Jesuits killed were the Spaniards Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno, as well as the Salvadoran Joaquín López and two of his collaborators, Elba and Celina Ramos.

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