Virginia Judge Rejects Deportation of Salvadoran Colonel Tied to El Mozote Massacre

[Judi Lynn]

Fred Ramos

Friday, September 29, 2023
Roman Gressier


This Monday, September 25, a Virginia immigration judge ruled to not deport retired Salvadoran Colonel Roberto Antonio Garay Saravia, arrested in April for his alleged involvement in the El Mozote massacre, in which Salvadoran commandos from the Atlacatl Battalion executed nearly 1,000 civilians amid a scorched-earth campaign in December 1981 in the department of Morazán.

Garay Saravia has legally resided in the United States since 2014 and is the first and only member of the Salvadoran military to be arrested explicitly for his ties to the massacre. According to army records, he served as commander of one of four sections of the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite squadron financed and trained by the United States. He was arrested following a joint two-year investigation by the human rights and war crimes units of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). U.S. investigators also tie the colonel to other massacres of civilians committed by the Salvadoran Army between 1981 and 1984 during the civil war, like La Quesera and El Calabozo, but the removal proceedings against Garay Saravia focused on the crimes at El Mozote.

Judge Brian T. Palmer conceded that Atlacatl participated in “scorched earth” campaigns. “The Court finds ample evidence in the record that noncombatant civilians were deliberately killed by Atlacati Battalion soldiers,” he wrote in his decision. He also acknowledged that Atlacatl participated in El Mozote, that Garay Saravia participated in “Operation Rescate,” the military operation in which the massacre occurred, and that the officer “was assigned as a Section Leader, in some capacity, within the Battalion.”

But at the same time he dismissed the key portion of the testimony of expert witness Terry Karl, a Stanford University investigator and specialist on the Salvadoran civil war. Karl asserted during the hearings that Garay Saravia “incited, assisted, or otherwise participated” in the massacres mentioned in the deportation proceedings.

. . .

Karl also testified in April 2021, during the ongoing trial for the El Mozote massacre in a court in Morazán, on the Army hierarchy involved in the massacre and the presence of a U.S. military advisor, Allen Bruce Hazelwood, in Morazán during the murders. The academic argues that a pact of silence among military officers has obstructed any courtroom testimony from within the Salvadoran Armed Forces.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202309/el_salvador/27075/virginia-judge-rejects-deportation-of-salvadoran-colonel-tied-to-el-mozote-massacre





~ ~ ~





Colonel Roberto Antonio Garay Saravia


The article indicates this American official was present during the massacre of the citizens.

- click for images of Allen Bruce Hazelwood US Army advisor -

https://tinyurl.com/y99hknpj

https://tinyurl.com/3js28bkr

https://tinyurl.com/bd5y77d8