Three erstwhile Salvadoran subject officers were convicted by a five-person assemblage precocious Tuesday for the 1982 killings of 4 Dutch journalists during the Central American nation's civilian war. They received 15-year situation sentences.
A assemblage made up of 5 women convicted the 3 men of execution successful a lightning proceedings that began Tuesday greeting successful the bluish metropolis of Chalatenango, said Oscar Pérez, lawyer for the Foundation Comunicandonos that represented the victims' families. Pérez said prosecutors had requested minimum 15-year situation sentences for each three.
Convicted were erstwhile Defense Minister Gen. José Guillermo García, 91, erstwhile treasury constabulary manager Col. Francisco Morán, 93, and Col. Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, who was the erstwhile service commandant of the Fourth Infantry Brigade successful Chalatenango.
García and Morán are nether constabulary defender astatine a backstage infirmary successful San Salvador, portion Reyes Mena lives successful the United States. In March, El Salvador's Supreme Court ordered that the extradition process beryllium started to bring him back.
Pérez said that successful summation to the convictions of the erstwhile high-ranking officers, the justice condemned the authorities for the delayed justness and ordered the commandant successful main of the equipped forces, President Nayib Bukele, to contented a nationalist apology to the victims.
In this March 11, 1982 photo, from left, Jan Kuiper, director; Koos Koster, producer; Joop Willemsen, cameraman; and Hans ter Laag, soundman; locomotion northbound of San Salvador, El Salvador, days earlier they were killed.
AP Photo, File)
The Dutch TV journalists - Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson - had linked up with leftist rebels and planned to walk respective days down rebel lines reporting. But Salvadoran soldiers equipped with battle rifles and instrumentality guns ambushed them and the guerrillas.
García was deported from the U.S. successful 2016, aft a U.S. justice declared him liable for superior quality rights violations during the aboriginal years of the warfare betwixt the subject and the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front guerrillas.
The prosecution of the men was reopened successful 2018 aft the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a wide amnesty passed pursuing the 1980-1992 war.
It moved slowly, but successful March 2022, relatives of the victims and representatives of the Dutch authorities and European Union demanded that those liable for sidesplitting Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson beryllium tried.
Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp welcomed the convictions.
"This is an important infinitesimal successful the combat against impunity and successful the pursuit of justness for the 4 Dutch journalists and their adjacent of kin," Veldkamp said successful a message connected societal media.
"Grateful to the authorities of El Salvador and to each those who person worked tirelessly connected this case," helium added.
According to Foundation Comunicandonos, Jan Kuiper died conscionable 2 days earlier his 40th day and his workfellow Hans ter Laag wrote a missive to his woman soon earlier the fatal trip, saying: "My dear, this Wednesday the guerrillas volition instrumentality america to the liberated zone. We are going to Chalatenango, wherever the equipped conflict is taking place. It is simply a precise unsafe travel and indispensable beryllium secret."
Koos Koster studied theology successful assemblage and published respective books astir planetary politics, Foundation Comunicandonos said. The tombstone astatine his graveside features an image, made by his sister, depicting a biblical communicative and adjacent to it the motto: "Survival compels."
Joop Willensen planned to wed his longtime partner, Yata Matsuzaki, successful Mexico aft his travel to El Salvador, she said.
The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, which was acceptable up arsenic portion of a U.N.-brokered bid statement successful 1992, concluded determination was wide grounds that the killings were the effect of an ambush acceptable up by Reyes Mena with the cognition of different officials, based connected an quality study that alerted of the journalists' presence.
Other members of the military, including Gen. Rafael Flores Lima and Sgt. Mario Canizales Espinoza were besides accused of involvement, but died. Canizales allegedly led the patrol that carried retired the massacre of the journalists.
Former Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia is surrounded by property arsenic helium arrives astatine the Oscar Arnulfo Romero planetary airdrome successful San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, Jan. 8, 2016.
Salvador Melendez / AP
Juan Carlos Sánchez, of the nongovernmental enactment Mesa Contra la Impunidad, successful comments to journalists, called the proceedings a "transcendental measurement that the victims person waited 40 years for."
An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador's civilian war, mostly by U.S.-backed authorities information forces.
The proceedings was closed to the public.
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