Salvador general accused of Jesuit killings dies

[Judi Lynn]

Salvador general accused of Jesuit killings dies
© 2011 The Associated Press
May 2, 2011, 3:54PM

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Rene Emilio Ponce, a Salvadoran army general and former defense minister accused of ordering the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests and two others during the country's civil war, died on Monday. He was 64.

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A U.N. truth commission report released in 1992 found Ponce ordered the killings of the Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter when Ponce was a colonel in the Salvadoran army. The priests, who worked at the Jesuit-run Universidad Centroamericana, had been suspected of sympathizing with the country's leftist rebel movement.

A U.S. congressional investigation found they had been rousted from their beds and shot by soldiers in the killings, which sparked international outrage.

Ponce was promoted to general the year after the massacre. He was defense minister from 1990 to 1993.

More:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/latinamerica/7547080.html