A court in El Salvador acquitted eight former guerrillas on September 24, 2025, of murdering a woman during the country’s civil war. The group includes five environmental activists who played a big role in the 2017 ban on metal mining, which President Nayib Bukele pushed to repeal in December 2024. Prosecutors charged them with killing María Inés Alvarenga in August 1989, claiming they saw her as an army informant.
The San Vicente Sentencing Tribunal handled the case and cleared the defendants of murder, unlawful association, and deprivation of liberty. One judge stated, “This court issues an acquittal. It is a decision that must be respected.” The prosecutor’s office can still appeal the ruling.
The acquitted men are Miguel Ángel Gámez Cruz, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega, Alejandro Laínez García, and Teodoro Antonio Pacheco Romero—the five environmentalists—along with Arturo Alfredo Serrano Ascencio, Fidel Dolores Recinos Alas, and José Eduardo Sancho Castañeda. They all belonged to the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the war.
Authorities arrested the group on January 11, 2023, after a complaint filed in April 2022 revived the case more than 30 years later. A first trial in October 2024 ended with their acquittal and release, but a higher court annulled that decision in November 2024 and ordered a retrial. The defendants skipped a February 2025 hearing, leading to arrest warrants. Courts tried them in absentia starting in late July 2025.
Prosecutors said guerrillas took Alvarenga from her home in Santa Marta, a northeastern community hit hard by the 1980-1992 conflict. They alleged the group held her for 15 days, tortured her, and killed her on September 6, 1989. Two of Alvarenga’s children testified that guerrillas accused their mother of informing for the army.
Defense witnesses, including former guerrillas, countered that six defendants were not in Santa Marta at the time, as they trained elsewhere for a major offensive. The court cited weak evidence and inconsistencies in a key prosecution witness’s story as reasons for the acquittal. It also lifted the arrest orders.
Several NGOs called the trial a form of persecution tied to the activists’ work against mining. The five environmentalists lead the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES) and fought for the mining ban amid concerns over water pollution. Critics link the case to Bukele’s moves to open the country to mining, including joining an intergovernmental mining forum in 2021 and setting up a new energy and mines directorate.
Alfredo Leiva, ADES leader, praised the decision outside the court. “We applaud the court’s decision; it’s what we have awaited for more than two years,” he said. “The Prosecutor’s Office has not been able to prove the case existed, much less link our colleagues to the crime.”
About 20 activists gathered, chanting “freedom for our comrades.” Vanesa Laínez, daughter of Alejandro Laínez, shared her relief: “I’m happy because my father was acquitted of the charges.”
The civil war killed around 75,000 people and left more than 7,000 missing, per official counts. This case stands out as one of the few prosecuted after the 1993 amnesty law’s repeal in 2016, though major atrocities like the El Mozote massacre remain unresolved.
International groups backed the defendants during both trials. UN experts raised alarms in 2023, and U.S. lawmakers called for fairness. Social media posts hailed the second acquittal as a win for water defenders. The ruling may ease tensions for environmental work in El Salvador, but an appeal could drag it out.
