El Salvador sentenced ex-military chiefs for 1982 execution of Dutch journalists

Three former Salvadoran military officers face terminal imprisonment after a court delivered historic sentences late Thursday for the 1982 ambush killings of four Dutch journalists during the nation’s civil war, according to AP News.

Former Defence Minister Gen. José Guillermo García (91), ex-Treasury Police Director Col. Francisco Morán (93), and Col. Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena (85) received cumulative 60-year sentences, 15 years per victim, as requested by prosecutors.

However, the court will enforce the maximum 30-year term permitted under Salvadoran law at the time of the crimes, ensuring the octogenarians and nonagenarian will “almost certainly die in jail.”

García and Morán remain under police guard at a private San Salvador hospital, serving their sentences at personal expense. Reyes Mena, residing in the United States, faces pending extradition following a Supreme Court order in March.

The tribunal also ordered President Nayib Bukele, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, to issue a formal public apology to the victims’ families within 30 business days. This directive acknowledges the state’s institutional responsibility for delays in justice and the perpetrators’ high-ranking military status.

The ruling follows a closed-door trial last month where a jury convicted the trio based on evidence including a 1993 UN Truth Commission report. That investigation concluded the killings resulted from “an ambush set up by Reyes Mena with the knowledge of other officials,” triggered by intelligence revealing the journalists’ presence.

The four victims, Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Hans ter Laag, and Joop Willemsen, were filming a documentary alongside leftist guerrillas when Salvadoran soldiers, armed with assault rifles and machine guns, ambushed their group in rural Chalatenango province.

The case, frozen for years under a 1993 amnesty law, was reopened in 2018 when the Supreme Court invalidated that legislation. The court highlighted that other implicated officers, including Gen. Rafael Flores Lima and Sgt. Mario Canizales Espinoza, who allegedly led the killing patrol, escaped justice through death.

The extradition of Reyes Mena now stands as the final test of the nation’s commitment to this hard-won justice.