Assets confiscated from former military man accused of murder in El Salvador

The judgment of the Court of First Instance of Dulce Nombre de María decided to preemptively confiscate the assets of Francisco Antonio Morán, José Guillermo García and Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, all of whom are currently being prosecuted.

General García, former Minister of Defense, and General Morán, then Director of the National Financial Police, have been arrested in the Bautista Hospital of this capital since October 2022, and Colonel Reyes Mena, head of the Fourth Infantry Brigade, a US citizen, is wanted for extradition.

The Attorney General’s Office accuses them, as well as former Sergeant Mario Canizales Espinoza and Colonel Rafael Flores Lima, the Chief of the General Staff, both deceased, of being involved in the ambush that killed four Dutch journalists on March 17, 1982.

Dutch journalists Koos Jacobus Andries Koster, Jan Cornelius Kuiper Joop, Hans Lodewijk ter Laag and Hohannes Jan Wilemsen were murdered by a patrol of the Atonal Battalion that left the Fourth Infantry Brigade of El Paraíso and ambushed them in Santa Rita, Chalatenango .

In a ruling of October 2022, the Court of First Instance of Dulce Nombre de María ordered the arrest of the former military officers in order to prosecute them for murder under the provisions of the 1974 Penal Code.

For human rights groups, the move could mean an end to impunity in the country for crimes committed during the conflict, which has seen some Salvadorans fighting others and the death toll topping 75,000 dead and missing. ied/oda/lb