El Salvador court postpones Jesuit case trial to April 2027 — The Rio Times

The Fourth Court of San Salvador has postponed the start of the trial in the case concerning the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests, a cook and her daughter until April 5, 2027. The decision was made after two retired generals failed to appear, with their lawyers citing health reasons, The Rio Times reports.

Reason for the postponement

Rafael Humberto Larios López and Juan Rafael Bustillo Toledo did not appear in court. The judges instructed the Institute of Forensic Medicine to verify whether their health condition justifies their absence.

Francisco Garay Pineda, the defense lawyer for Colonel Manuel Rivas, said that the 1998 Criminal Procedure Code does not permit the trial to begin without the presence of all defendants. This is the third postponement of the hearings: the start of proceedings scheduled for July 20 was delayed because Spain had not responded to a request concerning the notification of one of the defendants, Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano.

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The 1989 murder case

On November 16, 1989, soldiers from the Atlacatl Battalion entered the Central American University in San Salvador. According to the findings of the UN Truth Commission, they killed six Jesuit priests, the cook Elba Ramos and her daughter Celina. Those killed included the university's rector, Ignacio Ellacuría.

Eleven people have been charged in the case, including Alfredo Cristiani, El Salvador's president in 1989, former military personnel and former lawmaker Rodolfo Parker. Cristiani is accused of indirect perpetration of the murders through inaction. There has still been no Salvadoran court verdict in this case.

Inocente Orlando Montano, who served as deputy minister of public security, was extradited from the United States to Spain in 2017. In 2020, a Spanish court found him guilty of the murder of five Spanish priests and imposed a cumulative sentence of more than 133 years in prison. El Salvador's prosecutor's office also accuses Montano of indirect perpetration of the murders of Salvadoran priest Joaquín López y López, Elba Ramos and her daughter.