The late Archbishop Oscar Romero The murder case of Salvadoran martyr Blessed Oscar Romero has been reopened. The Archbishop of San Salvador, an outspoken critic of the violence in the El Salvador Civil War as well as poverty and corruption in the Central American country, was shot and killed while celebrating Mass in 1980, but because of an amnesty prohibiting the prosecution of criminal acts in the war, the alleged murderer was never tried.
The country’s constitutional court lifted the ban last year, potentially reopening cases from 1980 to 1992. Judge Ricardo Chicas has now reopened the case, ordering that charges be sought against Alvaro Rafael Saravia, whose case was dismissed in 1993 because of the amnesty law. He was a soldier and is the main suspect tied to a right-wing death squad thought to have killed the bishop.