The journalists from IKON – Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen, and Hans Terlaag – were killed by the Salvadoran army in 1982 while working on a report about the Salvadoran civil war. They walked into an ambush near Chalatenango, a conflict zone.
The court found three former high-ranking officials guilty of involvement in the murders: former Defense Minister Guillermo GarcĂa, ex-colonel Francisco Antonio Morán, and General Rafael Flores Lima. Each was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
The trial began in 2022 after previous efforts to prosecute had been blocked for years. The case was only reopened after El Salvador’s Constitutional Court ruled in 2016 that amnesty laws from the 1990s were unconstitutional.
The prosecutor argued that the murders were part of a broader pattern of violence against journalists and citizens who criticized the then-military regime. The judges concluded it was not a spontaneous act, but a planned military operation.
RTV Drenthe highlighted Assen’s personal connection to one of the victims, Joop Willemsen, who hailed from there. In Assen, the verdict was met with relief and emotion, finally acknowledging the severity of the crime. [RTV Drenthe]
The trial was also monitored by international observers; human rights organizations and families of the murdered journalists have long pushed for prosecution. One of the commanders at the time had fled to the United States but was tracked down there by Dutch investigative journalists.
Although the verdict is seen as an important step, survivors and human rights groups stress that full justice will only be achieved when other responsible parties are also held accountable. It remains unclear whether further charges will be filed.
According to the Dutch Journalists Union, the convictions are also symbolically important as they demonstrate that impunity for war crimes is not endless. The NVJ calls it a milestone in the fight against violence toward reporters.