MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Arrest of former Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani ordered

Cristiani, 76, is said to be residing in Rome, Italy, but his current whereabouts are unknown

A court in the Salvadoran city of San Francisco Gotera has issued a warrant for the arrest of former president Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994) and some former lawmakers for their alleged involvement in the 1981 El Mozote massacre in which around 1,000 peasants were killed during the civil war (1980-1992).

Judge Mirtala Portillo issued the arrest warrant for the crime of “personal cover-up” of the military defendants and declared the massacre a crime against humanity. Portillo's measure claims Cristiani and the Board of Directors of the Legislative Assembly in 1993 helped military defendants dodge Justice with the enactment of an amnesty law. “Said legal instrument was issued with the acquiescence of the accused Alfredo Félix Cristlani Burkard, who served as president of the Republic, who sanctioned and ordered its publication to convert it into an instrument of obligatory character,” the magistrate argued. The law made it “impossible for the judicial authorities to provide justice to the victims through an exemplary sentence.”

Also targetted by the arrest warrant are former lawmakers Luis Roberto Angulo Samayoa, Rubén Ignacio Zamora Rivas, Raúl Manuel Somoza Alfaro, Raúl Antonio Peña Flores, Alfredo, René Flores Aquino, Reynaldo Quintanilla Prado, and Ernesto Taufik Kury Aspridis plus the deceased Ciro Cruz Zepeda Peña and Mercedes Gloria Salguero Gross.

In 2016, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court declared the amnesty law unconstitutional, which prevented the prosecution of the military commanders behind the massacre for two decades and the process was reopened.

Portillo took over the case after the dismissal of Judge Jorge Guzmán following a 2021 decree removing from their benches all judges over 60 years of age or with a 30-year career.

According to the 1993 Report of the United Nations Truth Commission in El Salvador, between December 10 and 13, 1981, units of the Atlacatl Battalion tortured and executed “deliberately and systematically” children, men, and women in El Mozote and other surrounding areas. At least 988 people, among them 558 children, of El Mozote and nearby communities were killed. A group of military personnel including former Defense Minister Guillermo García is being prosecuted on charges of murder, rape, deprivation of liberty, housebreaking, robbery, damage, destruction, preparatory acts of terrorism, and terrorism.

The Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992), which pitted the army against the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrillas, resulted in some 75,000 deaths and hundreds of massacres of civilians attributed to the armed forces participating in the so-called “Operation Rescue,” a mission aimed at eliminating those suspected of collaborating with the rebels in the department of Morazán. At least 7,000 other people were reported missing.

Cristiani, 76, is said to be residing in Rome, Italy, but his current whereabouts are unknown, it was reported. Another arrest warrant has been out for him since 2022 for his alleged involvement in the 1989 murder of six Catholic priests and two female collaborators by the army on the campus of the Jesuit Central American University (UCA). The former right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party leader has also been linked to acts of corruption.

El Mozote is the largest massacre known to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which in 2012 ruled that the Salvadoran State was responsible for this event and demanded reparation measures.