After a Salvadoran court ordered on August 22, 2024 the trial of former militaries for the murder of four Dutch journalists in 1982, in which they are implicated, including Guillermo Garcia, former Minister of Defense, and Francisco Moran, former director of the former Treasury Police, another process was opened on the eve of the trial.
With the expectation of an exemplary sentence that breaks with the historical impunity in El Salvador, the Comunicándonos Foundation and the Salvadoran Association for Human Rights (Asdehu), added to its call, the case of the six Jesuits massacred at the Central American University José Simeón Cañas (UCA).
Despite some of the military personnel implicated in the case being found not guilty, 10 of the alleged perpetrators of the crime committed on November 16, 1989, were sent to trial yesterday after the preliminary hearing.
The accused will be tried for murder and acts of terrorism, except Carlos Camilo Hernández, who was acquitted of the latter offense.
Former president Alfredo Cristiani Burkard is among the accused Joaquín Cerna, Juan Bustillo, Juan Zepeda, and former congressman Rodolfo Parker, against whom the court issued an arrest warrant and red notice.
At that time the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was carrying out a military offensive against the army in the country’s capital.
The accused will be tried for the crimes of murder, procedural fraud, and cover-up.
jrr/abo/mem/lb