Inocente Orlando Montano sat in the sparsely filled courtroom, saying nothing, as two American lawyers and a federal judge argued his fate.



In court, the man who was once El Salvador’s vice-minister of defense and public safety wore an orange jumpsuit stamped with the initials of the North Carolina prison where he currently resides. A blue walker was parked behind him.

Wednesday’s argument centred on whether Montano, 73 and an ex-colonel in the Salvadorian military, would be extradited from the United States to Spain, where a judge eagerly waits to prosecute him for one of the most notorious crimes of his country’s horrific 12-year civil war: the murders of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and the housekeeper’s teenage daughter, on a university campus in San Salvador in 1989.

There was no decision from the US magistrate judge on Wednesday, surprising many watching the case unfold in US district court who thought extradition would be quickly granted under the firm prodding of the State Department.

Instead, the federal public defender who has taken on Montano’s case, James E Todd, bombarded the court with 44 pieces of evidence – mostly declassified diplomatic cables from the time – all of which he slowly read aloud for several hours as the prosecutor openly fidgeted and rolled his eyes.

At the end of the hearing, Judge Kimberly Swank gave both sides until mid-September to submit written arguments, sometime after which, she would issue a written decision.

“Obviously it has taken me some time to digest this, and obviously it will take some more time,” Swank said.

The then Colonel Montano was a member of President Alfredo Cristiani’s cabinet in November 1989, when the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite army unit originally trained at the US-run School of the Americas, raided the residence of Jesuit priests on the campus of the Central American University in El Salvador’s capital.

The country’s military leaders believed that the priests were helping leftist fighters with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, or FMLN, in the civil war.

The soldiers forced their way into the house, ordered five priests to lie face down in the garden, and shot them all.

On orders to leave no witnesses, they then searched the house and murdered a sixth priest, along with housekeeper Julia Elba Ramos and her 16-year-old daughter, Celina Mariceth Ramos, according to a 1993 report by a United Nations-sponsored truth and reconciliation commission. The priests were Fathers Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Segundo Montes, Amando López, Joaquín López y López and Juan Ramón Moreno.

To avoid detection, the soldiers used an AK-47 seized from FMLN fighters to kill the priests and would-be witnesses. They also blasted the front of the building and left a cardboard sign blaming the FMLN for the attack. But another housekeeper survived and later gave her testimony.

Montano was later identified as one of the architects of the massacre by several informants, including those with the truth and reconciliation commission.

Though 19 other officers are also accused of helping plan the attack and conspiring to cover it up, Montano is the only one currently in custody.

Caskets are carried during the funeral procession in San Salvador of six Jesuit priests killed by the Salvadorian military in 1989. Photograph: Luis Romero/AP

In 2001, Montano moved to the United States, having lied to immigration authorities about his military record and entry date to obtain work papers. He was eventually discovered while living in Boston and, in 2012, pleaded guilty to six counts of immigration fraud and perjury.

Two military officials responsible for the massacre were briefly convicted and jailed in El Salvador after the end of the war in 1992, but they were released soon after under an amnesty law that is still in effect.



In an effort to reopen the case, a Spanish court initially charged the accused military officials with having committed crimes against humanity and state terrorism, but a 2014 revision to the country’s laws meant that the former charge had to be dropped. Rather, the case was limited to just terrorism and murder charges, on the ground that five of the murdered priests were Spanish citizens.

Montanto’s lawyer James Todd deployed a wide variety of arguments in his client’s defense, including impugning past informants and witnesses. Several times he mentioned that it would be better for Montano to face a Salvadorian court, though there is no indication that one would try him.

As the session wore on, Todd became emotional, audibly choking back tears as he told the judge of his respect for the Jesuit order. “We’re not here to argue it wasn’t a heinous act against men who dedicated their lives to the church,” he said. Instead, he said, he was defending Montano’s right to due process. Montano did not visibly react.

Carolyn Patty Blum, a senior legal adviser with the Center for Justice and Accountability, which has taken a leading role in pushing the case, rejected that argument.

“Montano chose to come to the United States. He chose to take advantage of the US system. If he wanted the protection of El Salvador, he should have stayed in El Salvador,” Blum said.

Five of his relatives, including Montano’s sister, made the trip to be among the 20 or so people, including lawyers and US marshals, in the courtroom on Wednesday.

The hearing for an accused international war criminal was somewhat unusual for this small southern town, best known for its barbecue and as the home of the East Carolina University Pirates. But a few in the town’s growing Latin American immigrant community were well aware of the figure in their midst.

“It would be a good thing if he was sent [to the Spanish court], but he is just one of many” who were responsible for the killing, Edelmira Maguna, 46, who was a law student in San Salvador at the time of the massacre, and now runs a Salvadorian-Mexican restaurant near the federal courthouse, said in Spanish. “It is always difficult with the high-level ones.”

