2023-11-23 03:50:00
The victim’s husband declared before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that the soldier was known to the family and had participated in operations prior to the disappearance of the human rights defender.
The Salvadoran State faced a hearing on Wednesday before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IDH Court), accused of being responsible for the illegal capture and subsequent disappearance of human rights defender Patricia Emilie Cuéllar Sandoval, her father Mauricio Cuéllar and the family employee Julia Orbelina Pérez, acts committed by elements of the Armed Forces on July 28, 1982.
????????⚖️????????⚖️We are on holiday break #PublicAudience of the Case of Cuéllar Sandoval et al. Vs. El Salvador????????
????????In this first part of the hearing, the Court has heard from the IACHR, the representatives of the alleged victims and the representation of the State.
(????????) pic.twitter.com/wLGKpYk4rD— Inter-American Court of Human Rights (@CorteIDH) November 22, 2023
At the public hearing, Patricia Cuéllar’s ex-husband pointed out retired colonel Jorge Eduardo Morán Recinos as suspected of being responsible for the military operation in which his wife and two other people were arbitrarily captured and disappeared.
Francisco Alfredo Álvarez Solís reported that the disappearance of his wife was preceded by a series of events of persecution, harassment and bullying by groups of the Armed Forces and the National Police (PN) and in one of these events they recognized Morán Recinos, who was known to the family as a neighbor.
“I investigated him because I think he is a key person to contribute to clarifying the truth,” said Álvarez.
At that time Morán Recinos held the rank of captain and was head of intelligence for the Treasury Police. After the signing of the Peace Accords, he served as head of security for the Legislative Assembly and is currently a candidate for deputy to Parlacen for the ARENA party, explained Patricia’s husband.
Missing
On July 28, 1982, like every day, Patricia dropped off her three children at daycare: an 8-month-old girl, a one-year-old and eight-month-old boy, and a three-year-old, but she never returned for them.
The daycare staff called the children’s father to come get them and that alerted the family that something bad had happened.
At night, a group of heavily armed soldiers raided the home of Mauricio Cuéllar, Patricia’s father and manager of the Salvadoran Association of Industrialists (ASI), where he and his employee Julia Orbelina Pérez were captured.
However, the family found out about the capture until the next day when Cuéllar did not show up for a scheduled conference. The family searched for them in the days after their capture, but they never found their whereabouts and 41 years later they are still missing.
One day before the disappearance, Patricia had gone to the Christian Legal Aid offices to report a persecution against her by security forces dressed in civilian clothes, while she was traveling in her vehicle.
Alvarez Solís declared that the disappearance of the people was not accidental, that there had previously been intelligence activities and military raids, due to Patricia’s work with grassroots Christian organizations and as secretary of the Cristino Legal Aid.
At Socorro Patricia was in charge of caring for victims of illegal captures and human rights violations committed by security forces.
Harassment
The first time that Patricia suffered military harassment was in 1978 when a group of soldiers entered the house, pointed a rifle at her husband, interrogated them and took photos of them.
Subsequently, on March 18, 1981, a group of soldiers violently entered the home of Álvarez and Cuéllar’s parents, where they lived with their children. The military accused the young mother of being “subversive.”
Then the soldiers in a vehicle took Álvarez’s father to show them where Patricia’s father and an aunt lived. In the same car the soldiers carried a tortured and bleeding young man, who was taken to the First Infantry Brigade, known as San Carlos barracks.
Physical and emotional effects
The relatives of the victims recounted before the Inter-American Court the physical and psychological effects they have suffered for more than 40 years after the disappearance.
Ana Gladis Pérez de Castro, daughter of Julia Orbelina Pérez, an employee of Mr. Cuéllar, explained the emotional impact she has suffered because her mother was her support in every way and helped her five children financially.
“I was hoping that she would return one Sunday, I kept waiting, I said that she could return,” the lady expressed before the highest court, then she broke down in tears.
Ana explained that since her mother disappeared she fell into chronic depression, with which she struggles until now and for which she must pay, on her own, for a private doctor and buy her medications.
Likewise, Patricia’s husband recounted the biological physical effects that his three children suffered in the absence of their biological mother. “They have had that void in their days and each one has responded to the pain in a different way,” Álvarez said between sobs.
The state version
The witness proposed by the State, Elsy Lourdes Flores Sosa, coordinator of the National Search Commission, assured that among the actions carried out in this case they requested information from the Armed Forces about the captures of the victims, but she assured that they did not find information about of the capture of those people.
He also reported that they have carried out a review in the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) to see if there is any recognition that could coincide with the three people, if they had been murdered and the review of cemeteries, information that is currently being systematized.
“If at any time we find something, obviously we are going to inform the families, to move on to other actions,” he assured.
Flores Sosa explained that most of the information that the Commission has was provided by the Christian Legal Aid, which extensively documented the event and information from the US embassy at this time so that search actions would be carried out, because Patricia had dual nationality.
When asked by the IACHR about the fact that the victims identify at least one person who is a member of the security forces who could have information about the case, the public official responded that “There are several people who could be linked, however Our line of investigation is not so much to determine who the perpetrators were,” although he accepted that at some point some perpetrators could have information on the whereabouts of the victims.
Sosa added that people have been mentioned in the investigations from the beginning, including those in charge of the National Police, the National Guard and the Ministry of Defense, but they have not been investigated.
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