Update: further development in the Jesuit case

    After the decision of the August ruling was made in favor of the 9 former soldiers due to legal technicalities, many followers of the case began to doubt if any progress could be made in favor of the murdered Jesuits. Will justice be served? Or will this case fall victim to the various loop holes in the Salvadoran legal system, and end in an impasse?

   On September 22, 2011, INTERPOL issued 5 new red notices to the Salvadoran government for a different group of former soldiers. Unlike the red notices for the previous 9, the Central Criminal Courts of Madrid took preemptive action and declared that these red notices are for the sole purpose of extradition and not simply for locating and tracking the accused. The first set of red notices lacked this sort of clarity, which proved to be a technicality that worked in favor of the first nine.
    The five former soldiers being requested are: Guillermo Alfredo Benavides, Joaquin Arnoldo Cerna Flores, Hector Ulises Cuenca Ocampo, Carlos Mauricio Guzman Aguila and Oscar Alberto. Of these five Guillermo Benavides, former director of the Military School, was previously found guilty of murder in 1991, but was later protected by the amnesty law and left unpunished (Elfaro). Also, Hector Ocampo-former deputy minister of Public Safety,  is reported to have applied for temporary protected status and is currently residing in the United States. However, the U.S. government denies having granted residency to persons accused of war crimes and claims they are monitoring the case and will be willing to "give any Spanish request for assistance the appropriate consideration" (dwkcommentaries).

    In order to avoid a repeat scenario, INTERPOL filed official extradition requests and must now wait for the Salvadoran Supreme Court to approve the request for extradition before they can make legal arrests and proceed with further hearings and prosecutions. Although the likeliness for the Supreme Court to grant extradition is slim, based on their decision of the previous 9 and their lack of action regarding military injustices of the civil war, it is not entirely certain what the Supreme Court will rule.

For more information regarding the case and how it has developed check out :  http://dwkcommentaries.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/international-criminal-justice-developments-in-spanish-courts-case-regarding-the-salvadoran-murders-of-the-jesuit-priests/