Latin America – Inocente Montano’s 133-year sentence for the murder of the Martyrs of the UCA upheld
"This was truly an assassination, carried out by means that had the backing of 'State terrorism'", says the sentence. The ruling considers it a proven fact that the murders were plotted, planned, agreed and ordered by the members of the High Command of the Salvadoran Armed Forces: a true state crime.
The Supreme Court emphasizes that the crime "went beyond the grave consequences of the attack" for the victims' lives, "because it intended to annihilate the hopes of peace of an entire society, plagued by ten years of civil war". Meanwhile, in El Salvador, the Supreme Court has recently closed the criminal case against the rest of the architects of the atrocity, who were mentioned in the Spanish judgment, issued under the principle of universal justice.
The Supreme Court has upheld the sentence to 133 years and four months in prison for Inocente Montano, the former colonel and former vice minister of Public Security of El Salvador, for the murders of five Spanish Jesuits in 1989, including Ignacio Ellacuría. The Court described the atrocity as a "state crime".
Just five months after the National High Court condemned the only military leader to be tried in Spain for these events, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has upheld the ruling on what it calls "a true story of terror and horror visited on the victims of this state crime".
Aged 78 and in poor health, Montano was convicted of five terrorist murders of the Spanish religious - Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno - carried out on the night of November 15th, 1989 at the Central American University. These came during one of the largest rebel offensives recorded during the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992). Read more...
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