Civil Lawsuit Filed in U.S. Against Salvadoran Officer in 1982 Journalist Murders

On October 10, 2024, in São Paulo, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed support for a civil lawsuit filed in a United States court against Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena. Reyes Mena is one of several Salvadoran military officers alleged to be connected to the 1982 murder of four Dutch journalists in Chalatenango, El Salvador. These journalists, Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Joop Willemsen, and Hans ter Laag, were ambushed and killed while covering the civil conflict in the country.

The lawsuit, filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf of Jan Kuiper’s brother, Gert Kuiper, is part of a broader effort by the victims’ families to seek justice. According to Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America Program Coordinator, “This lawsuit shows the determination of victims’ families to seek truth, memory, and justice, offering hope for even the most egregious cases of impunity for the killing of journalists.”

The complaint, submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, aims not only for financial redress but seeks to legitimize the case within the United States, potentially leading to Reyes Mena’s deportation to face trial in El Salvador. Despite his status as a fugitive under Salvadoran law since 2022 and an Interpol red notice, U.S. laws currently prevent his arrest, as they do not regard such notices as sufficient grounds for detention.

Gert Kuiper filed the complaint with support from human rights organizations Fundación Comunicándonos and ASDEHU of El Salvador. Reyes Mena, responsible for commanding troops during the ambush, was implicated by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report. The report identified him as a central figure in the orchestration of the attack, following investigations into thousands of wartime atrocities mostly committed by the Salvadoran military.

Presently, two other former military officials, José Guillermo García and Francisco Antonio Morán, involved in the case, remain in an El Salvadoran hospital under arrest. Meanwhile, renewed legal action comes as part of ongoing efforts to address wartime human rights violations following the 2016 repeal of the 1993 Salvadoran amnesty law.

In light of the renewed charges, the Salvadoran government, led by President Nayib Bukele since 2019, faced criticism for failing to provide access to military archives, thereby hindering judicial processes related to other wartime cases, such as the El Mozote massacre. New developments in the case raise hopes of finally addressing the longstanding impunity characterized by previous administrations’ reluctance to allow transparency in military operations during the civil war.