An El Salvador court has acquitted five community leaders and antimining activists from Santa Marta, a municipality in the southeastern department of Usulután, of charges tied to a 1989 kidnapping and murder during the country’s civil war. Human rights groups have called the prosecution politically motivated, suggesting it was brought against the activists in retaliation for their opposition to mining projects and water contamination. The five men, known as Los 5 de Santa Marta (the Santa Marta Five) are Miguel Ángel Gámez, Alejandro Laínez García, Pedro Antonio Rivas Laínez, Antonio Pacheco and Saúl Agustín Rivas Ortega. They were arrested in January 2023 and initially acquitted in October of the same year. However, prosecutors appealed and forced a retrial. They also added three additional men to the case: Fidel Dolores Recinos Alas, José Eduardo Sancho Castañeda and Arturo Serrano Ascencio. Prosecutors sought prison sentences of 39 to 41 years. On Sept. 24 this year, the judges again found all the men not guilty. “Today, justice has prevailed, legality has prevailed, and we have won this trial for the second time,” Pedro Cruz, the lead lawyer for the defense team, told local media on Sept. 24. “What is clear is that the defendants are innocent, that we have always been right in saying that the evidence was insufficient, that the incriminating evidence is irrelevant.” The Santa Marta Five, as well as the three other men included in the case, were cleared of the criminal charges of illicit association, as well as the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed