El Salvador Convicts Ex-Military for 1982 Dutch Journalists Killings

A jury in El Salvador has convicted three former military officers—ex-defense minister José Guillermo García, former police colonel Francisco Antonio Morán, and ex-infantry brigade commander Mario Reyes Mena—for the 1982 ambush and killing of four Dutch journalists during the country's civil war. The journalists, who were filming a documentary for Dutch television, were killed while reporting near rebel-held areas, in what a 1993 UN Truth Commission found to be a premeditated ambush planned by Reyes with the knowledge of other officials. Despite their advanced ages and ill health, the defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison, with the verdict being final and unappealable. Reyes remains in the United States, and although El Salvador's Supreme Court approved his extradition, progress on his return has stalled. The trial, reopened after the Supreme Court annulled a civil war amnesty law in 2018, is hailed by human rights groups and relatives of the victims as a historic step against impunity and a precedent for justice for other civil war crimes. The case marks the first conviction linked to the civil war crimes investigated by the UN and represents a breakthrough in decades of stalled efforts for accountability.