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April 9, 2015

U.S. Deports Salvadoran General Linked to Murders, Torture 
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Human rights advocates and family members of victims are celebrating a
pair of victories in long campaigns to deport Salvadoran generals
accused of U.S-backed atrocities. On Wednesday, former General Carlos
Eugenio Vides Casanova was deported to El Salvador from the U.S., ending
a 16-year legal battle. In a ruling last month, the Board of Immigration
Appeals found there is ample evidence General Vides was complicit in the
rape and murder of four U.S. churchwomen in 1980, as well as the torture
of political prisoners. He is the highest-ranking foreign military
leader to be deported under a 2004 law barring human rights violators
from U.S. soil. Vides was a close U.S. government ally during his stint
as defense minister for the Salvadoran junta between 1983 and 1989. The
churchwomen’s families have fought for years to hold him and other
U.S.-backed Salvadoran officials responsible.