El Salvador court orders arrest of former president for cover-up of massacre
El Salvador court orders arrest of former president for cover-up of massacre
A local court in El Salvador has ordered the arrest of former President Alfredo Cristiani for the alleged cover-up of the 1981 El Mozote massacre during the Central American country's civil war that lasted twelve years.
In the document, issued by a court in San Francisco Gotera on Friday, Cristiani, 76, is named as one of 10 people who promoted a general amnesty law that was approved in 1993 and exonerates those accused of war crimes.
Calling the El Mozote massacre a "crime against humanity," the document orders the capture of the former president and four other defendants who later were part of the country's congress.
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During the El Mozote massacre, some 1,000 peasants died in a four-day counterinsurgency military operation.
When Cristiani was president, he signed the peace accords in 1992 in Mexico City that ended a conflict that left an estimated 75,000 dead.
This article was produced by Reuters news agency. It has not been edited by Global South World.
