The act of the execution of the priests, relevant in the trial

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• Courts: A UN expert gives the names of the soldiers who ordered the killing of Ellacuría without leaving witnesses

• Hemeroteca.The General Staff of El Salvador ordered Ignacio Ellacuría to be 'eliminated'

On November 22, 2009, EL MUNDO published the act of the execution of the Jesuits, an extract from the newspaper that the only military command convicted in

for the massacre, the then commander

, wrote in prison in 1994 and in the one who recounted the events that occurred between the night of the 15th and the early morning of November 16, 1989.

In that document, Benavides not only tells what the Salvadoran High Command decided, but who carried it out.

The newspaper reveals that the military leaders

,

,

,

and

were the "decision-making group."

At one point in the night, these five soldiers required the presence of Benavides, who was below all of them in the ranks and was directing the Military School.

Immediately, according to the minutes, Benavides received an order: "We must proceed to eliminate [Father

] without witnesses."

Both that page and some other parts of the newspaper were protagonists in several sessions of the trial held in July and that ended yesterday in Montano's conviction.

Both the prosecution and defense lawyers tried to get different witnesses to corroborate or question the document, which was repeatedly exposed before the cameras that followed the trial.

Testimony "vital"

Especially important was the statement by Lieutenant

, the second and last convicted in El Salvador, who coincided with Benavides in jail and was a member of the battalion that murdered the victims.

The National Court considers his testimony "vital" when condemning Montano, one of those cited in the Benavides document.

During his statement at the Hearing, on July 8, Mendoza not only acknowledged the facts, but also categorically stated that the order to finish off the Jesuits came from the High Command and that Benavides showed him the newspaper when they both shared prison.

A day later, on July 9, the author of the information in EL MUNDO,

, testified as a witness and said that, in 2008, the former ambassador of Spain in San Salvador,

, gave him a photocopy.

The diplomat had it in his possession since 1994, when the Jesuits provided him with a copy of the newspaper written by Benavides and asked him to guard it "because security was not the strongest element in El Salvador in those years."

Rubio stated in the trial that for a year he investigated the veracity of the document and in November 2009 he published it in EL MUNDO.

That text, decisive for many researchers, was also shown in the July 10 session to

, a legal adviser to the United Nations Truth Commission.

The North American jurist said that, although "not substantial", the newspaper written by Benavides was for his investigation "an element of support" to verify the involvement of the Salvadoran High Command in the design and execution of the massacre.

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