Immigration ruling for deportation of ex-Salvadoran general made public

The New York Times has procured the public release of the decision by the federal immigration judge who ruled that former Salvadoran General Eugenio Vides Casanova can be deported from the US as a human rights violator.   As reported here, last year the judge issued the deportation order, but only now is the full text of the decision available.

The NYT describes the decision:

The immigration judge, James Grim, found that the general had “assisted or otherwise participated in” their killings for failing to supervise or investigate the soldiers who carried out the crime. He issued the deportation order that the general is appealing. 

In clearing the way for his removal on human rights grounds, Judge Grim found that given the hundreds if not thousands of extrajudicial killings while General Vides Casanova commanded the national guard, it was “implausible” that he had been “unaware of his subordinates’ involvement in at least one of these killings.” 

The general “knew or should have known that his subordinates” committed killings, and he did not take “reasonable measures to prevent or stop such acts or investigate in a genuine effort to punish the perpetrators,” the judge wrote. 

In two cases of torture, involving Juan Romagoza and Daniel Alvarado, the judge
determined that the general had been aware of the torture but that he took no action to
discipline the men who carried it out. In Mr. Alvarado’s case, the judge wrote, the major
who supervised the torture was later promoted.

The 151 page decision recounts the testimony of scores of human rights atrocities committed  by the Salvadoran military under the command of Vides Casanova and other high ranking leaders.   Twenty years after the publication of the UN Truth Commission report documenting many of these same crimes, this is one of the few judicial proceedings to assess responsibility for abuses during the civil war.