The National Court has granted conditional release on health grounds to former Salvadoran colonel Inocente Orlando Montano, convicted in Spain for the murder of five Spanish Jesuits in El Salvador in 1989.
The former Salvadoran Deputy Minister of Public Security, aged 83, suffers from a serious and irreversible illness and presents significant cognitive deterioration that requires medical attention outside prison.
Montano was serving his sentence at the Madrid VII penitentiary center in Estremera, after the National Court convicted him in 2020 for five counts of terrorist murder. The sentence, later upheld by the Supreme Court, imposed penalties totaling more than 133 years in prison, with a maximum effective compliance limit of 30 years.
Conditional release due to his health condition
The decision responds to the deterioration of Montano’s health and the difficulties in adequately addressing his situation within the prison regime. According to the information published about the ruling, he presents significant cognitive deterioration, substantial dependency for carrying out daily activities, and a serious and incurable illness that has required frequent hospital transfers.
The judge has considered that the prison environment is no longer suitable for monitoring and controlling the disease and has based the measure on reasons of humanity and dignity. The Prosecutor’s Office did not oppose the granting of conditional release.
The release does not annul the conviction. Montano must continue under supervision and pursue the corresponding medical treatment.
The UCA massacre: six Jesuits and two women murdered
The events for which Montano was tried date back to the early morning of November 16, 1989, during the Salvadoran civil war. A group of soldiers from the Atlácatl battalion entered the campus of the Central American University José Simeón Cañas (UCA) in San Salvador and headed to the Jesuit residence.
There, six members of the Society of Jesus were murdered: Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Segundo Montes, Amando López, Juan Ramón Moreno and Joaquín López y López. The first five were Spanish, while Joaquín López y López was Salvadoran.
The soldiers also murdered Elba Julia Ramos, who worked at the residence, and her daughter Celina Mariceth Ramos, aged 15. The massacre therefore left eight victims.
The National Court found it proven that the operation had been decided by members of the high command of the Salvadoran Armed Forces and that Montano, then a colonel and Deputy Minister of Public Security, was part of that high command and participated in the decision.
Why Montano was convicted of five murders and not eight
The Spanish sentence established Montano’s responsibility for the murders of the five Spanish Jesuits: Ignacio Ellacuría, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Segundo Montes, Amando López and Juan Ramón Moreno. For each of the five counts of terrorist murder, he received a sentence of 26 years, eight months and one day in prison.
The court also considered Montano responsible for the deaths of the Salvadoran Jesuit Joaquín López y López, Elba Julia Ramos and her daughter Celina. However, it could not convict him for these three crimes because the United States, from where he had been extradited to Spain, had not authorized his surrender to be prosecuted for those acts.
Hence, the Spanish process usually refers to the «murder of five Jesuits,» although the massacre perpetrated at the UCA left eight dead: six religious and two women.
Ellacuría and the search for a negotiated solution to the war
Among the victims was Ignacio Ellacuría, born in Portugalete (Vizcaya) in 1930 and rector of the UCA since 1979. The Jesuit, linked to liberation theology, had acquired a notable presence in Salvadoran public life during the civil war.
Ellacuría advocated for a negotiated solution to the conflict between the Government and the guerrilla of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). The massacre occurred during a major guerrilla offensive that had begun days earlier in San Salvador, in a context of strong military and political confrontation.
The Spanish sentence established that the objective of the operation was to eliminate Ellacuría and that the members of the high command agreed to carry out the action against the Jesuits. The Supreme Court confirmed Montano’s conviction in 2021 and considered his participation in the decision to be proven.
A process that continues in El Salvador
Montano’s release occurs while the case remains open judicially in El Salvador. Other former political and military leaders are being prosecuted for the massacre, including former Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani and several former members of the Armed Forces. The trial scheduled against eleven defendants has been postponed until October 2026.
Montano was the only member of the Salvadoran high command tried and convicted in Spain for these events. His conditional release responds exclusively to his medical situation and does not modify the final sentence that established his responsibility for the murders.