US court orders two former El Salvador generals to pay $54m to torture victims

Two former generals in the El Salvador army were held responsible by a US court yesterday for massacres and brutality perpetrated by their soldiers and ordered to pay $54.6m (£35m) in compensation.

The jury decided that Carlos Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia, both former defence ministers, ignored widespread acts of brutality against civilians during the civil war that raged in El Salvador from 1979 to 1992.

Both men were trained by the US military at its notorious School of the Americas in Georgia where torture manuals were used.

The civil suit was brought by the San Francisco-based Centre for Justice and Accountability on behalf of three plaintiffs, Juan Romagoza Arce, Neris Gonzalez and Carlos Mauricio. Ms Gonzalez and Mr Mauricio were in the court in Palm Beach, Florida, and broke out in tears when the decision was announced.

Mr Mauricio, 50, a former professor who fled El Salvador after being tortured for two weeks by police in June 1983, told The Independent: "I have been waiting for this day in court for 20 years. Since I was released from prison I have been waiting for the day I would be able to come to court.

"There is no way I will be able to forget what happened. I believe that the trauma caused by torture is something you cannot forget." He added: "I am happy, so very, very happy. The money is nice but it's not the most important thing. It is knowing that now we have justice."

Mr Mauricio, now a science teacher at a high school in San Francisco, said he still suffers eyesight problems as a result of the beatings he received when he was held. He was awarded $13.1m.

Ms Gonzalez was repeatedly raped by soldiers when she was eight months pregnant and her child died two months after it was born. She now works for an environmental organisation.

Mr Arce, who runs a community health clinic in Washington, is unable to perform surgery because of the so-called Chinese wire torture which numbed his arm.

He was awarded $20m in damages and Ms Gonzalez $21.5m. She blew a kiss to the jurors and mouthed the words: "Thank you, thank you."

The two generals were both trained by the US military at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia. Once they retired from the military they moved to Florida, where they were tried under the Torture Victim Protection Act that allows US courts to assess damages against perpetrators of human rights abuses committed abroad.

Their lawyer, Kurt Klaus, said the two men – who were not in court – could not pay the damages. The case had hinged on whether the generals knew or should have known of the abuse and failed to prevent or punish it.

Mr Klaus argued that they could not control rogue troops in the chaos of war. He said: "How could they know what someone was doing in a room at night? No one knows what happened except the people who were in that room."

More than 70,000 civilians were killed during the civil war. A former US ambassador to El Salvador had earlier told the federal court that he used to see bodies stacked up in the capital, San Salvador, on a daily basis.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, James Green, said: "This verdict sends a message to commanders everywhere that they are responsible for the abuses of the troops they command and they cannot come to the United States to seek a haven from punishment."