Former president of El Salvador to face trial over murder and terrorism charges

A court in El Salvador has ruled to bring former president Alfredo Cristiani, a former congressman and nine retired military officials to trial for their alleged roles in the murder of six Jesuit priests, a housekeeper and her daughter during the Central American nation's civil war 35 years ago.

The defendants are being charged with murder and acts of terrorism over one of the most high-profile crimes committed during El Salvador’s civil war, which claimed the lives of 75,000 people between 1979 and 1992. Ex-congressman Rodolfo Parker and retired army officials Oscar León and Manuel Rivas have also been accused of procedural fraud and personal cover-up.

Alfredo Cristani's whereabouts are currently unknown.

In late 1989, military commandos stormed the Jesuit Central American University campus, killing rector Ignacio Ellacuría as well as jesuits Juan Ramón Moreno, Ignacio Martín Baró, Joaquín López y López, Amando López and Segundo Montes. Housekeeper Elba Ramos and her teenage daughter Celina were also killed.

The incident, which led to so much international condemnation that the US would be pushed to end its support for the Salvadoran military regime, was covered in detail in Hot Press at the time by then-future President Michael D. Higgins:

"Julia and Celina were photographed on the ground, next to four of the Jesuits," he wrote in 1989 (full article available in Michael D. Higgins' Power To The People: The Hot Press Years).  "A severed arm from Celina, who was 15, lay on the ground. To live with her mother, thus sharing a residence with what the death squads called “polluted minds” was sufficient cause for them to kill her and mutilate her body."