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General cleared churchwomen deaths { November 3 2000 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/03/churchwomen.verdict.int/ http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/03/churchwomen.verdict.int/ Former Salvadoran generals cleared in four church women's deaths November 3, 2000 Web posted at: 12:04 p.m. EST (1704 GMT) From staff and wire reports WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (CNN) -- A federal jury decided Friday that two former Salvadoran generals were not responsible for the 1980 deaths of four American church women. Attorneys for the four women's families had asked the jury to order former Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia and Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, the former head of the Salvadoran National Guard, to pay $100 million in compensatory damages. Nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke and Dorothy Kazel and missionary Jean Donovan were detained at police roadblock on December 2, 1980. Their bullet-riddled bodies were discovered the next day beside a dirt road. Five members of the Salvadoran National Guard were convicted in 1984 of raping and murdering the women. In 1998, four of the guardsmen said they had acted under orders. The families alleged the killings were part of a campaign to silence sympathizers of El Salvador's leftist guerrillas. The targets included church members critical of the military-led government during the 12-year civil war that began in 1979. Lawyers for their families told the jury that hundreds of declassified documents, testimony from a former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and documentation of rampant killings of other religious figures prove Garcia and Vides Casanova did nothing to stop the massacres. The former generals also helped cover up evidence that the soldiers were responsible, the lawyers said. Garcia, 67, and Vides Casanova, 62, retired to Florida in 1989 and were granted U.S. residency because they had never been convicted of a crime. Garcia said he was fleeing death threats. They lived quietly in middle-class neighborhoods until families of the slain women learned they were here from a reporter. The families brought the civil action after they failed to have the two tried in criminal court in their homeland. Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Chomsky salvador { December 7 1990 } Cuba criticizes reagan for salvador war { June 7 2004 } El mozote massacre { December 10 1981 } General cleared churchwomen deaths { November 3 2000 } Generals connected to soa found liable for torture { July 23 2002 } Genocide { March 31 1980 } Killing 4 women not policy { October 19 2000 } Murdered nun case refused { June 5 1998 } Negroponte knowledge of 1980s death squads { March 21 2005 } Nuns raped murdered Nuns [jpg] Pentagon considers salvador option in iraq Prey for nuns [jpg] Rapist murderers of nuns in elsalvador released { July 22 1998 } Romero { March 24 2002 } Salvador commie threat just poor people { January 29 2007 } Salvador newsclips { October 22 1987 } Suit filed oscar romero death { September 17 2003 } Time line { July 18 2002 } Torture victims win { July 24 2002 } US considers salvador option for iraq { January 10 2005 } Us role death romero { March 24 2002 } Files Listed: 22

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