Rights groups pressure El Salvador to extradite former military officers to Spain

Human rights organizations in El Salvador and Washington on Tuesday demanded the Salvadoran government cooperate with Spain's judicial authorities by extraditing 13 former military officers to Madrid to stand trial for the 1989 murder of five Spanish-born Jesuit priests.

On December 2, Spain's Cabinet formally asked the San Salvador government to hand over the former officers charged by High Court Judge Eloy Velasco in connection with the massacre of the five priests, their Salvadoran colleague, and two workers at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) during the civil war in El Salvador.

In a joint statement, the José Simeón Cañas Human Rights Institute at UCA and Washington-based Center for Justice and International Law said the Spanish inquiry is "the last hope at the moment" for the families of the victims to seek justice.

"Without any excuses, El Salvador has a duty to cooperate with the inquiry," the statement reads.

In 1991, a jury in El Salvador acquitted seven of nine officers for the murders. Two years later, President Alfredo Cristiani offered a blanket amnesty to former officers and guerrillas just hours before a UN Truth Commission released a report blaming military high command for ordering the murders.

The Salvadoran Supreme Court has rejected Velasco's original extradition request.