By Lindsay Dunsmuir
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday deported Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, El Salvador's former defense minister, accused of involvement in torture and killings 30 years ago during the Central American country's bloody civil war, U.S. officials said.
Vides Casanova was defense minister from 1983-89, a brutal period during the conflict between leftist rebels and U.S.-backed government forces. He retired and moved to Florida in 1989.
The Department of Homeland Security had in 2009 announced its initiation of deportation proceedings, at the request of human rights activists who sued on behalf of torture survivors.
"The deportation of General Vides Casanova is a historic moment for the victims and survivors of human rights abuses during El Salvador's civil war," said Carolyn Patty Blum, Legal Advisor the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, which brought a case against Vides Casanova in 1999 on behalf of torture victims living in the United States.
"The removal from the United States of Vides Casanova, a general at the apex of power during years of horrendous repression, is unprecedented, she added.
His deportation to El Salvador came on the same day that U.S. authorities announced they will seek the extradition of a former colonel in the Salvadoran army wanted by Spain to face charges over the murder of five Spanish Jesuit priests in El Salvador in 1989, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday.
Inocente Orlando Montano Morales, 72, was indicted in Spain in March 2011 along with 19 other former Salvadoran army officers in connection with the murders. He is currently serving a 21-month prison sentence in North Carolina on unrelated U.S. immigration fraud charges, and was due for release on April 15.
Montano Morales is accused of overseeing a radio station that urged the murder of the priests and participating in meetings a day before the deaths in which a colleague gave the order to kill the men.
"The allegations contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and any finding of guilt or innocence will be made by Spanish courts upon Montano Morales's extradition," the Justice Department said in a statement.
The priests' murders were among the most notorious crimes during the period. In addition, a Salvadoran priest was shot dead along with the men's housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter.
During El Salvador's civil war, an estimated 75,000 people were killed and 8,000 were left missing.
A lawyer for Montano Morales could not immediately be identified.