Weekly Report - 17 May 2012 (WR-12-19)

EL SALVADOR | Spain’s extradition request denied. El Salvador’s supreme court of justice (CSJ) has refused Spain’s request for the extradition of 13 former military officers in relation to the murder of six Jesuit priests (five of whom were Spanish), their housekeeper and her daughter by a government death squad in 1989 during the 1980-1992 civil war. In May 2011, a Spanish judge, Eloy Velasco Núñez, charged the officials under the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, championed by Spanish courts, which maintains that some crimes are deemed so serious they can be prosecuted outside of the country in which they were committed. Announced on 8 May, the CSJ’s decision, which represents a major setback in terms of efforts to redress past impunity, is based on the fact that Salvadorean law prohibited the extradition of its citizens prior to 2000; as the murders took place in 1989, the accused cannot be extradited.

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