Following the decision of a chamber of the Supreme Court to invalidate a dismissal of the military implicated in the incident, the Prosecutor's Office of El Salvador decided to reopen the case of the six Jesuit priests and two collaborators murdered in 1989, in which it is the then Venezuelan diplomat Leopoldo Castillo was involved.
Through a statement on its official Twitter account, the Constitutional Chamber reported that it considered that the protection made by the Attorney General, Rodolfo Delgado, has been in place, who declared the "absolute nullity of the criminal proceeding brought against the persons linked to the case called "Massacre of the Jesuits."
For his part, after learning of the Constitutional Chamber's decision, the Attorney General officially announced that the case will be reopened, assuring that they will pursue "those responsible to achieve justice for these vile murders."
"For years, so many national and international voices have demanded justice in the Jesuit case," Delgado stated via his Twitter account.
Operation Centauro was the code name for the plan of physical elimination of the group of religious that was under suspicion of collaborating with the Salvadoran guerrillas.
Castillo is scheduled to attend the meetings to carry out Operation Centauro, which were held at the headquarters of the School of the Americas.
The murder of the priests and two collaborators was a crime committed within the framework of the civil war on the early morning of November 16, 1989, when, in the midst of a guerrilla offensive on San Salvador, members of the now outlawed Atlacatl battalion committed the murder of the Hispano-Salvadoran Ignacio Ellacuría (rector of the UCA), the Spaniards Ignacio Martín Baró (vice-rector), Segundo Montes, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno, the Salvadoran Joaquín López, the cook Elba Ramos and her daughter Celina, on the campus of the Jesuit Central American University (UCA).
In September 1991, a court in San Salvador tried nine military personnel as the perpetrators of the act, without taking into account the masterminds who, according to humanitarian organizations, were high-ranking military officers of the time.
Leopoldo Castillo
The Venezuelan opposition journalist Leopoldo Castillo is one of those who runs the risk of being tried, if his participation in the massacre of the Jesuits is proven, since according to various sources, in his capacity as Ambassador of Venezuela in El Salvador, he would have served of support and collaborated in the so-called Operation Centauro, which would lead to the vicious and treacherous murder of Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Juan Ramón Moreno, Amando López, Joaquin López, Elba and Celina Ramos. Castillo currently resides in Miami, he is related to the extreme right, as well as his participation in the School of the Americas and his links and collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
