A Salvadoran court grants conditional release to one of those responsible for the 1989 Jesuit massacre

November 14 () –

The Fourth Court of Penitentiary Surveillance and Sentence Execution of San Salvador has granted early conditional release to Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of six Jesuit priests -five of them Spanish- and two women perpetrated by the military on November 16, 1989.

“The special hearing procedure was carried out, and the result was positive, there was a grant from the judge to grant the benefit of early conditional release in favor of my client,” Benavides’s defense attorney, David Campos, reported. the Salvadoran newspaper ‘El Mundo’.

Campos has highlighted that the requirements have been met: having served more than 60 years of age and a third of the sentence, that is, 10 of the 30 of the total sentence.

“They were fulfilled in October. Therefore, the conditions were in place, since in addition to that, he is 77 years old to grant him early parole,” Campos highlighted. Benavides will be subject to comply with standards of conduct and always be under the surveillance of the court.

Benavides is convicted of material responsibility for the massacre in the 1990s, but was released under the General Amnesty Law. He went back to prison after the repeal of the law, in 2016.

MASSACRE ON THE UCA CAMPUS

The massacre took place in November at dawn on the 16th of 1989 on the UCA campus in San Salvador, the country’s capital. Among the victims is the ideologue of Liberation Theology, the Spanish Ignacio Ellacuría, then rector of the UCA.

The Spaniards Ignacio Martín Baró (vice-rector), Segundo Montes, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno also died, as well as the Salvadorans Joaquín López, Elba Ramos and their daughter Celina. All of them were killed in the middle of a guerrilla offensive on San Salvador by soldiers from the Atlacatl battalion of the Salvadoran Army.

In September 1991, a court tried nine soldiers who were listed as material authors without taking into account the intellectual authors, according to humanitarian organizations. Colonel Guillermo Alfredo Benavides was found guilty of all the murders and Lieutenant Yusshy René Mendoza was held responsible for the death of the minor Celina.

Both officers were released under a 1993 amnesty law, but Benavides was jailed again to complete his 30-year sentence, after the amnesty was declared time-barred in 2016.

The case was reopened on January 5 of this year to try the alleged masterminds: ex-military officers Juan Orlando Zepeda, Francisco Elena Fuentes and Rafael Humberto Larios.

The case has also had its judicial journey in Spain and in September 2020 the National Court sentenced Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano Morales to 133 years in prison.

The civil war ended on January 16, 1992 with the signing of peace agreements between the government and the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. The conflict left more than 75,000 dead, 7,000 disappeared and millions in losses in the economy.