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Disregarding the advice of his lawyer, Colonel Montano has exercised his right to the last word. A policeman has brought the wheelchair closer to the microphone and the old military man has removed the mask from his face, has rested his right hand on the left and has spoken before history.

"I swear before the court and before my God that I am not lying. I never participated in any meeting where the order was given to kill the priests. Neither my companions nor I participated in the savage act of that murder. There was no preconceived plan to murdering was a mistake by the soldiers. I have been repulsed by so many lies about myself, about my promotion and about the government of my country. In this trial, they have lied outright. "

His name is Innocente Orlando Montano and he has declared himself his own name: innocent. He is the only alleged intellectual author of the massacre against Spanish Jesuits in El Salvador in 1989 that has been tried in Spain, the first and last time that a process born here thanks to the principle of universal justice will be held and sentenced in our country.

For this reason, on this Wednesday in July and the coronavirus pandemic, Montano has spoken before history. Thirty-one years after the events and nine very long sessions in the National Court, the trial has been seen for sentencing.

Montano: "This trial has suffered from errors"

On one side, eight victims: the well-known Jesuits in favor of a peace negotiated between the Government and the guerrillas and tireless denouncers of the violations of Human Rights. Ignacio Ellacuría , Ignacio Martín Baró , Segundo Montes , Armando López , Juan Ramón Moreno and Joaquín López , and the domestic employee Elba Julia Ramos and her 15-year-old daughter, Celina Maricet Ramos .

To the other, the colonel and then vice-minister of Public Security, Innocent Orlando Montano. And, by extension, several high-ranking officers who were acquitted in 1991 in El Salvador, in a trial described by the international community as "a farce", that they belonged to an ultra-right-wing military promotion called La Tandona and that were pointed out at the hearing of the National Court as intellectual co-authors of that documented order to "eliminate Ellacuría without leaving witnesses" in the early hours of November 16, 1989 .

And all that, Montano did not like anything: "This trial has suffered from many technical and moral errors, it has been lied to. The group from La Tandona is not a terrorist organization, but a social one. We are still meeting to celebrate things We were always respectful of Human Rights. The murder was terrible and you cannot imagine how most of the Armed Forces regret those deaths. We were never against the Jesuits; Ellacuría was a friend, I was not a member of the guerrillas and I was never I accused him. He was honest and correct. "

In the course of the conclusions, Montano's defense attorney has tried to discredit the experts who, over the past 30 years, have written incriminating reports and has focused part of his argument on the lack of evidence.

Defense: "There are no witnesses"

"We share the atrocity of the massacre. But there are no witnesses implicating my defendant. And the only one who has testified [Lt. Yusshy Mendoza , who accompanied the murderous battalion] has been charged in the process, so his statement lacks probative value. In the reports of the experts there are affirmations not supported in documents. And others, in documents that say otherwise. "

The central thread of the lawyer Jorge Agüero Lafora to defend Montano is that the colonel had no command in the plaza. "He did not participate in the events, nor did he have responsibility for them because his functions did not allow him to. His functions were administrative, not operational. Montano had no command of the fact. And nothing shows that he was in a meeting where that decision was made. says that it is a terrorist murder for the Spanish justice to condemn. Montano was not part of an armed gang to commit crimes. La Tandona was not a gang, nor did it have hierarchy as a group in the State. Are we going to consider a State as Terrorist gang? The sole purpose of this trial has been to find someone to be held accountable and who appears to be doing justice. "

An hour before all that, the opposite had been heard in the courtroom and on devices connected in Spain and America to the television signal of the National Court. The final argument of the attorney for the popular prosecution has been a missile upward, an appeal to the ethical significance of the crime, a murder of eight people that was actually a murder of mankind.

"Today we do not judge a criminal, we judge an enemy of Humanity. Justice will be done with the victims, with the Salvadoran people and with the international community because this fact hurts all of Humanity."

"State terrorism"

And it is that Manuel Ollé has placed the execution as the result of a planned action from the Salvadoran state apparatus. A "pact for the slaughter" decided by a power group made up of several soldiers from the High Command, which he has called "mediated co-authors", with a political purpose that altered public peace.

"I ask the court that this be the first sentence in Spain to establish that it is a mediated co-authorship." That is why Ollé speaks of "state terrorism". And also of "war crime", which, on the other hand, cannot be prosecuted in Spain as such due to the abolition that the Government of the Popular Party made of the principle of universal justice: "The greatest legal contribution of Spain to the international community As it was the principle of universal justice, it was cut in 2014. "

However, the lawyer has addressed the court to appeal to the transnational character of a massacre like that of the Jesuits: "Today, the National Court is not a national court. By the principle of Universal Justice, today you act on behalf of the community International. Universal justice guarantees that there is no impunity. Spain today does not replace Salvadoran justice, it complements it with Universal Justice because this fact hurts the entire Humanity. "

Representing the brothers of Ignacio Martín Baró, the lawyer for the private prosecution has spoken of a "sinister conjunction of the civil and military" to assassinate the Jesuits. And it has abounded in the concept of mediated co-authorship: "Here there was no induction, nor necessary cooperation. It is about authorship."

"State Crime"

At one point, José Antonio Martín Pallín turned his gaze to Montano: "El Salvador was not a criminal State, but with criminals within the State. And you were. It was a State crime, because the State tried to cover up the crime, with a sham trial [the one in 1991 in El Salvador] included. You were part of the people who had control of the fact. That's why you are a co-author. You could stop that, you could have given a counter-order, put your fellow plotters in the position that this was a crime against Humanity. And not only did it not, but it approved the development of the network ". And at that level of infamy, the lawyer places the 1989 massacre as a "universal tragedy."

Also with the mask removed from his face, Martín Pallín has announced that he is going to finish his argument. And then he turned his gaze again and addressed himself directly to Colonel Montano: "Since you are a believer, when you use your last word, think about what Saint Paul said: 'Only the truth will make you free'. It is your chance. "

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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