Former Salvadoran General Deported from U.S.
The Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the deportation of former Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova. Vides, former head of the Salvadoran National Guard and minister of defense, was found complicit in the torture of political prisoners and the kidnapping, rape, and murder of three American Maryknoll nuns.
In 1980, Jean Donovan and Maryknoll nuns Ita Ford, Maura Clarke, and Dorothy Kazel were kidnapped by national guardsmen from the airport in San Salvador. They were then raped and shot by the guardsmen in the Salvadoran countryside. Two students who testified against Vides were also kidnapped and tortured by guardsmen under Vides’ command.
The court found Vides guilty, citing for the first time a 2004 human rights law that holds commanders accountable for any torture and extrajudicial killings done by their subordinates. Vides was found indirectly or directly responsible for a number of tortures and deaths, including those of the four American churchwomen.
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