El Salvador court sentences 3 ex-military officers over killings of Dutch journalists in 1982

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) – Three former El Salvador military officers were given lengthy prison sentences late Thursday over the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists during the country’s civil war.

It means former Defense Minister Gen. José Guillermo García, 91, former treasury police director Col. Francisco Morán, 93, and Col. Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, will likely die in custody.

In the sentence, seen by The Associated Press, the court imposed 15-year sentences requested by the prosecution cumulative for each victim, adding up to 60 years. However, the court will follow the maximum sentence allowed at the time of the killings, which was 30 years.

The court also ordered President Nayib Bukele, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces, to issue a public apology to the victims’ families.

Last month, a jury convicted the three former officers after a trial that was closed to the public.

García and Morán are under police guard at a private hospital in San Salvador, where they will serve out their sentences at their expense, the court ruled.

Reyes Mena – who was the former army commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade in Chalatenango – lives in the United States. In March, El Salvador’s Supreme Court ordered that the extradition process be started to bring him back.

“Truth and justice have won over impunity and this is a historic event for El Salvador,” said Oscar Pérez of the Fundación Comunicandonos, which represents the families.

The Dutch TV journalists – Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson – had linked up with leftist rebels and planned to spend several days behind rebel lines reporting. But Salvadoran soldiers armed with assault rifles and machine guns ambushed them and the guerrillas.

The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, which was set up as part of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement in 1992, concluded there was clear evidence that the killings were the result of an ambush set up by Reyes Mena with the knowledge of other officials, based on an intelligence report that alerted of the journalists’ presence.

Other members of the military, including Gen. Rafael Flores Lima and Sgt. Mario Canizales Espinoza were also accused of involvement, but died. Canizales allegedly led the patrol that carried out the massacre of the journalists.

An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador’s civil war, mostly by U.S.-backed government security forces.