http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/30/us/colonel-guilty-in-jesuit-deaths-in-el-salvador.html

September 30, 1991

Colonel Guilty In Jesuit Deaths In El Salvador

By SHIRLEY CHRISTIAN

SAN SALVADOR, Sept. 29 -- A Salvadoran Army colonel has been found guilty of murder and terrorism for sending a patrol to raid a university residence where six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter were gunned down in 1989.

The verdict, delivered by a five-member jury late Saturday night, was hailed by many as a precedent in a country where army officers have never been punished for crimes against civilians.

Col. Guillermo Alfredo Benavides Moreno, director of the military academy at the time of the slayings on Nov. 16, 1989, was found responsible for all eight killings. But the trial left unanswered whether officers higher in the military chain of command initiated the order for the predawn massacre.

Lawyers Talk of Coverup

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, which advised Jesuit leaders during the investigation and trial, said the Salvadoran military had covered up possible involvement of higher-ranking officers in the army command. The group said the army leadership tolerated the trial only because of pressure from the United States Congress, which had made successful prosecution of the Jesuits' killers a condition for continuing aid to El Salvador's rightist Government.

The jury also found Lieut. Yusshy Rene Mendoza Vallecillos guilty of murder in the death of the cook's daughter, 15-year-old Celina Mariceth Ramos.

Two other lieutenants and five soldiers were found innocent, even though four of the soldiers admitted in statements before the trial that they had been the gunmen in the execution-style slayings. The fifth soldier deserted shortly after the killings.

Colonel Benavides and Lieutenant Mendoza face prison sentences of 20 to 30 years. Judge Richard Zamora must issue the sentences within 30 days.

The three-day trial, ending nearly two years of judicial maneuvering, was described today by the Auxiliary Bishop of San Salvador, Msgr. Gregorio Rosa Chavez, as the "trial of the century" because of its potential to remold the country's future. The proceedings were televised, making it possible for almost the whole country to watch.

Msgr. Rosa Chavez compared the trial in a homily to the breakthrough in peace negotiations last week in New York between the Salvadoran Government and guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, declaring that the two events constituted a "a decisive turn in our history."

Not Satisfied With Verdict

But he said the church was not satisfied with the result because the gunmen themselves had not been convicted along with their commander.

"What was on trial here was not eight men, but a system, a way of doing things, a mentality," he said, adding, "It is necessary to go beyond these eight faces and these uniforms."

The issue of American military aid and the foreign nationality of many of the victims -- five of the six slain Jesuits were Spaniards -- attracted large numbers of foreign observers to the crowded courtroom. The defendants sat expressionless through most of the trial.

The identities of the five jurors were kept secret, out of fear for their security. Members of the panel heard the proceedings from behind a wooden partition.

Prosecutors described the defendants as terrorists and argued that it was time to establish that colonels and other military officers were subject to law and civilian rule.

Defense lawyers, ignoring the earlier confessions of most of their clients, contended that the case was being prosecuted only because of pressure from a "white" country -- the United States.

A State Department official who specializes in Central American affairs said tonight in Washington, "The trial will promote the rule of law and leaves no doubt that everybody -- including the military -- is subject to the rule of law."

Army Supporters Demonstrate

About 200 army supporters, mostly women, gathered outside the courthouse with banners and sound equipment on Saturday afternoon and broadcast the national anthem and military taps into the courtroom.

The Rev. Jose Maria Tojeira, who heads all of the Jesuits in Central America, said the verdict was a "stimulant to continue looking for responsibility higher up."

"I think the jury realized that there is a formation in military training here that leads to very grave violations of human rights," he said. But he added: "It is very difficult to think that just one person was responsible for these assassinations. While the jury has judged those lower down to be innocent, there is something at a higher level still to investigate."

Guardsmen Convicted in '80

It is the first time in modern memory that a military officer has been convicted of killing a civilian in El Salvador. Five enlisted men in the National Guard were convicted of murder in the slayings of three American nuns and a laywoman in December 1980.

Michael Posner, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers Committee, who attended the trial, said there was concern among the victims' supporters that President Alfredo Cristiani might be contemplating a pardon or amnesty that would permit the two officers to go free after a short time as part of the peace settlement reached last week.

The predawn massacre at the priests' residence at the Jesuit-run Central American University came a few days after the guerrillas began an offensive against the Salvadoran capital. As fighting spread through many neighborhoods, the army leadership brought reinforcements into San Salvador. Some of those troops were based at the military academy.

Army officers and members of the political right had long characterized the Jesuits and the university as the intellectual heart of the guerrilla cause. But during the 1989 offensive the military went further, telling American advisers that they believed the university had become an actual command post for combat.

Troops Had Searched House

On Nov. 13, troops searched the campus, but apparently found nothing incriminating. Nonetheless, according to the statements and confessions of the lieutenants and enlisted men, Colonel Benavides ordered a group of men from the unit temporarily assigned to the school, the Atlacatl battalion, to carry out the raid on the Jesuit house. The colonel was not present when the massacre occurred.

Lieut. Jose Ricardo Espinoza Guerra, one of the seven men acquitted, said in his confession before the trial that Colonel Benavides ordered him to eliminate the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, the rector of the university, and to leave no witnesses.

The others gunned down that morning were Ignacio Martin-Baro, Segundo Montes Mozo, Amando Lopez Quintana, Juan Ramon Moreno and Joaquin Lopez y Lopez, all Jesuits; Julia Elba, the cook, and Miss Ramos, her daughter.