In the early morning of August 23, 2011, Federal officials took into custody Inocente Orlando Montano, former Salvadoran minister responsible for the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests and two women, on charges of lying on immigration documents that he filed with the federal government after taking up residence in Massachusetts in 2004. This past May, the Spanish National Court also indicted Montano and nineteen other Salvadoran high commanders in the context of CJA’s Jesuits Massacre Case which was initiated in 2008. Nine of the men named in the indictments turned themselves in to authorities in El Salvador on August 7, 2011.
Montano’s arrest would not have been possible without his indictment in Spain and the fact that CJA discovered that he was living in Everett, Massachusetts. CJA International Attorney and lead counsel on the case, Almudena Bernabeu, said, “We are pleased that U.S. authorities finally acted and arrested Montano, even though the action was only related to immigration fraud. No one should lose sight of what precipitated this arrest in the first place, which was Montano’s participation in the murder of the Jesuit priests and two women in 1989. This arrest gives Spanish authorities an opportunity to formally request Montano’s extradition — which if the U.S. honors, would once and for all result in a trial and justice for this terrible crime.”
