U.S. seeks extradition to Spain of Salvadoran wanted in priest killings
Source: Reuters
US | Wed Apr 8, 2015 12:45pm EDT
U.S. seeks extradition to Spain of Salvadoran wanted in priest killings
WASHINGTON | BY LINDSAY DUNSMUIR
(Reuters) - U.S. authorities will seek the extradition of a former colonel in the Salvadoran army wanted by Spain to face charges over the murder of five Spanish Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
Inocente Orlando Montano Morales, 72, had been indicted in Spain in March 2011 along with 19 other former Salvadoran army officers in connection with the murders, which took place during El Salvador's bloody 12-year civil war from 1980-1992.
He is currently serving a 21-month prison sentence in North Carolina on unrelated U.S. immigration fraud charges, and was due for release on April 15.
At the time of the killings, Montano Morales was both a colonel in the army and the vice minister of defense and public safety.
He is accused of overseeing a radio station that urged the murder of the priests as well as participating in meetings a day before the deaths in which a colleague gave the order to kill the men.
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