On Monday, the Spanish National Court granted conditional release on health grounds to former colonel and former Deputy Minister of Public Security of El Salvador, Inocente Montano, sentenced in 2020 to 133 years in prison for the 1989 murders of five Spanish Jesuits, including Ignacio Ellacuría.

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Six years after that sentence, later ratified by the Supreme Court—which classified the events as a state crime—the court accepted the proposal from Estremera prison in Madrid and authorized the early release of the 84-year-old former military officer, who suffers from significant cognitive decline.

According to the court order, first reported by the online newspaper El Confidencial and accessed by EFE, Montano will be under the care and supervision of the NGO Basida, in Madrid, which accepted his guardianship. The judge determined that Montano’s irreversible illness, requiring frequent hospitalizations, and his advanced age necessitate conditional release. The magistrate emphasized that the crucial point is that the prison environment is inadequate for monitoring and managing his condition.

Before issuing its ruling, the National Court unsuccessfully attempted to contact the victims’ families, in accordance with the Victims’ Statute, although some had already passed away and others could not be located. The Public Prosecutor’s Office did not oppose the measure.

#ATENCION | La Audiencia Nacional española concedió la libertad condicional por motivos de salud al excoronel salvadoreño Inocente Montano, quien cumplía una pena de 133 años de prisión dictada en 2020 por el asesinato de cinco jesuitas españoles en 1989. pic.twitter.com/SjUhSjn1vk

— CENTRO Digital (@radiocentroec) August 17, 2026

The text reads, “Spain’s National Court granted conditional release on health grounds to former Salvadoran colonel Inocente Montano, who was serving a 133-year prison sentence handed down in 2020 for the murder of five Spanish Jesuits in 1989.”

Context of the conviction

Montano was the only military leader tried in Spain for the Central American University massacre, perpetrated on the night of November 15-16, 1989, during the largest insurgent offensive of the Salvadoran Civil War (1980-1992). He was convicted of five terrorist murders: those of the Spanish priests Ignacio Ellacuría, Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró, Amando López, and Juan Ramón Moreno. The court also found him responsible for the murders of Salvadoran Jesuit priest Joaquín López, cook Julia Elba, and her 15-year-old daughter, Celina Mariceth, although it could not convict him for these crimes because the United States refused to grant the corresponding extradition.

The sentence, handed down more than 31 years after the massacre, determined that the murders were “conceived, planned, agreed upon, and ordered” by members of the High Command of the Salvadoran Armed Forces, of which Montano and then-President Alfredo Cristiani (1989-1994) were members. Cristiani’s extradition to Spain was rejected by the Salvadoran justice system.

The trial for the intellectual authorship of the massacre remains pending in El Salvador. In 2024, a court sent 11 defendants to trial, including Cristiani, whose whereabouts are unknown and who has an arrest warrant, as well as retired military commanders such as Joaquín Cerna, Juan Rafael Bustillo, Juan Orlando Zepeda, Rafael Humberto Larios, Carlos Camilo Hernández, Nelson Iván López, Óscar Alberto León Linares and Manuel Antonio Ermenegildo Rivas Mejía, as well as former congressman Rodolfo Parker.

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— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) August 13, 2026

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