Salvadoran ex-colonel convicted of murder of Jesuits 3:00
(CNN Spanish) -
The magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) of El Salvador invalidated this Wednesday the decision taken by the Criminal Chamber of the CSJ that in September 2020 closed the criminal process for the murder of six Jesuit priests and two of their collaborators, which occurred on November 16, 1989, during the Salvadoran civil war.
According to a statement from the Constitutional Chamber, there was "violation of the rights to legal security, jurisdictional protection and to know the truth."
The Constitutional Chamber gives a period of 10 working days to the Criminal Chamber to rule, according to the statement, with the "constitutionality parameters" issued in the sentence this Wednesday.
A man observes a mural painting on November 16, 2006 in the Chapel of the Central American University, with the faces of six Spanish Jesuit priests and two of their collaborators, assassinated by the Salvadoran army in 1989 in San Salvador.
(YURI CORTEZ / AFP via Getty Images)
The magistrates of this chamber, appointed on May 1, 2021 by the Legislative Assembly -of the ruling majority-, agreed with the arguments presented on November 16 of last year by Rodolfo Delgado, attorney general of El Salvador, also sworn in on the May 1, 2021 in the same plenary session by the deputies.
Delgado assured this Wednesday that for this crime, national and international voices demanded justice.
“The case will be reopened.
We are going to prosecute those responsible, to achieve justice for these vile murders, "he wrote on his official Twitter account.
For his part, President Nayib Bukele applauded the decision and saw it as a message that impunity will not be tolerated.
"It is not fair that a person who steals a chicken spends a decade in jail and people who were in high positions in the government, very high positions in the government order massacres and the crime happens in total impunity with the complicity of the system of justice, "said the president.
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The Criminal Chamber argued, in September 2020, that on December 12, 2000, the Third Peace Court ordered in an initial hearing the definitive dismissal on the grounds that the criminal action had prescribed since more than 10 years had passed since the crime at the time that the Attorney General of El Salvador presented the accusation, the maximum limit established by the legislation in the Central American country to prosecute a crime.
In that ruling, the magistrates described the massacre as "reprehensible" but pointed out that "no matter how reprehensible the criminal acts are, this does not enable the entities that prosecute the crime to violate constitutional principles and guarantees."
Lisandro Quintanilla, lawyer for two of the retired soldiers involved in this case, considered the magistrates' decision "unfair" and denounced that the Constitutional Chamber did not give them enough time to present their arguments.
“The Chamber sends us a file of more than 1,000 pages and a short time to respond.
It shows us that they never intended to respect the right to a hearing, "he told CNN.
"It is only a matter of time for the attorney general to present a new accusation," acknowledged the lawyer who assures that he will begin to prepare with his team the "defense strategy" to show that his clients had nothing to do with the events.
CNN is trying to contact the others involved in search of their reactions, including former president Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994).
Two condemned
For the murder of the Jesuits there are two people in prison.
One is retired Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, sentenced to 30 years in prison in 1992, but was released when the Amnesty Law was passed in 1993.
In February 2016, he was arrested in El Salvador at the request of the Spanish judge Eloy Velasco.
His lawyers applauded that the extradition to Spain did not materialize when, in July of that year, the Supreme Court of Justice declared the Amnesty Law unconstitutional.
With that decision of the magistrates, a court upheld the sentence and he was confined in a prison in El Salvador.
Benavides has not accepted the charges, even through his lawyers he appealed the sentence, without success.
On November 17, 2021, the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador denied the petition for clemency requested by the defense attorneys of Benavides Moreno, the only one convicted in El Salvador for the murder.
The other convicted person is Inocente Orlando Montano, who since September 2020 has been serving a sentence in Spain of 133 years and four months in prison for the "terrorist murder" of five Spanish Jesuit priests.
The Jesuit priests were assassinated during the guerrilla offensive "Hasta el Tope" by an elite group of the Army, 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 Truth Commission on the Civil War in El Salvador, which had the support of the United Nations, concluded in 1993 that an elite group of the Army assassinated Jesuit priests in the facilities of the Central American University.
The victims were the Spanish Jesuits Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Armando López and Juan Ramón Moreno, as well as three Salvadorans, the priest Joaquín López and his collaborators, Elba and his daughter Celina Ramos.
Assassination of Jesuit Priests