U.S. deports Salvadoran ex-general who lived quiet life in Palm Coast

Published: Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 3:10 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, April 9, 2015 at 9:02 p.m.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A former general linked to human rights abuses during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980s, who was living in Palm Coast, was deported by the U.S. and flown to his home country, where officials said he faces no charges or restrictions on his movements.



Police escort former General Eugenio Vides Casanova to a car outside the airport in San Salvador, El Salvador, Wednesday, April 8, 2015. The ex-general linked to human rights abuses during El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980’s was deported by the U.S. on Wednesday. He had been living in Florida since he retired in 1989, but was taken into custody by U.S. immigration authorities in late March after the United States’ top immigration court ruled that he should be deported.
Associated Press

Ex-Gen. Eugenio Vides Casanova arrived at San Salvador’s international airport on a federal flight Wednesday along with 120 other deportees, Salvadoran immigration spokesman Mauricio Silva told The Associated Press.

Vides Casanova lived on a quiet cul-de-sac in the R section of Palm Coast and was described by neighbor Robb Adams as “very nice and a gentleman.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that Vides Casanova’s deportation came after the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld a judge’s 2012 ruling that the ex-general was “removable for having ‘committed, ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated’ in acts of torture and extrajudicial killing.”

Vides Casanova, a 77-year-old former defense minister and head of El Salvador’s national guard, has been tied to killings and torture by Salvadoran soldiers under his command, including the deaths of three U.S. nuns and a lay churchwoman in 1980.

He had been living in Florida since he retired in 1989, but was taken into custody by U.S. immigration authorities in late March after the United States’ top immigration court ruled that he should be deported. The case was brought under a 2004 law designed to keep those accused of human rights abuses in other countries from seeking refuge in the U.S.

Adams, who has been Vides Casanova’s neighbor for about 1 1/2 years, said he had Vides Casanova over for a few parties at his home but that the family “pretty much kept to themselves.” He said he thought Vides Casanova had been deported because he was an illegal alien, and was shocked when told of the charges of human rights abuses.

“He’s a great guy. It was really a disappointment finding out about him,” Adams said. “I can’t speak enough good words for the guy.”

Carolyn Patty Blum, senior legal adviser for the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, said Vides Casanova had married into one of the wealthiest families in El Salvador.

Flagler County records show his wife, Maria Lourdes Llach Vides, owns several properties throughout Palm Coast.

Vides Casanova, who in the 1980s was twice awarded the U.S. government’s Legion of Merit for battling leftist rebels, has argued that his removal would be unfair because El Salvador’s military tactics were backed by Washington at the time.

Vides Casonova’s Daytona Beach attorney Diego Handel said the ex-general “is a staunch ally of the U.S.” and his deportation is an injustice. Handel added that any allegations of human rights violations are “deceiving and misleading.”

Blum said Vides Casonova still has an appeal pending with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, and that process will continue.

Human rights activists and survivors of civil war abuses protested outside San Salvador’s airport as the former general arrived. Among them was Juan Jose Romagoza, who filed a U.S. civil suit against Vides Casanova that resulted in a million-dollar judgment for him and two other Salvadoran plaintiffs in 2002.

“I was captured, wounded, tortured, held in the national guard’s prisons under this general,” Romagoza said. “I am here to demand justice, a search for truth and for him to go on trial. Only then can we forgive.”

Vides Casanova and other former military figures are shielded by an amnesty law covering crimes committed during the 1979-2002 civil war, in which over 75,000 people were killed and at least 10,000 more disappeared.

Human rights prosecutor David Morales said there is no warrant for Vides Casanova’s arrest and he is free to move about the country, but he called on prosecutors to open a case regardless.

“These are crimes against humanity that are not subject to amnesty,” Morales said.

Blum called Vides Casanova’s deportation a “historic moment” for civil war victims.

“Hopefully (it) will be a new impetus for the repeal of El Salvador’s decades-old amnesty law, which has been ruled illegal under international law, and will clear the path for Vides Casanova to face criminal accountability in his own country,” Blum said in a statement from the organization.

At the airport, uniformed officers escorted Vides Casanova, bespectacled and dressed casually in black pants and a checkered shirt, to a vehicle outside the terminal.

Also Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department said it will seek to extradite former Salvadoran Col. Inocente Orlando Montano Morales to Spain.

Montano Morales is one of 20 former Salvadoran military officials indicted there on charges related to the 1989 killings of six Jesuit priests — five of whom were Spanish citizens — a housekeeper and her daughter, by Salvadoran soldiers.

He is currently serving time in a North Carolina prison for immigration fraud and perjury.

Vides Casanova isn’t the only former foreign military officer known to have lived in the Volusia-Flagler region.

Pedro Pablo Barrientos served as an Army Lieutenant under the dictatorship of Chilean president Augusto Pinochet and is last known to have been living in Deltona, Blum said.

In 2013, he was sued by the family of Victor Jara, a well-known folk singer and political activist who was slain in 1973 during a coup that brought Pinochet to power. That case is pending.

— The Associated Press and News-Journal Staff Writers Laurie Hahn and Chris Graham contributed to this report.
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