José Guillermo García

José Guillermo Garcia
Born 1933 (age 8283)
San Vicente, El Salvador
Nationality Salvadoran
Education School of the Americas
Employer Military of El Salvador
Known for human rights violations
Title General

José Guillermo García (born 1933) is a former general of the military of El Salvador and was minister of defense in the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador between the years 1979 and 1983.[1] He emigrated to the United States in 1989. He was sued, along with Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, in the United States district court in West Palm Beach[2] in two precedent-setting legal actions:

General Garcia and General Vides Casanova had been undergoing a deportation process since 1999.[5] The Department of Homeland Security later charged Garcia in 2009 with participating or assisting in torture and extrajudicial killings during his tenure as Minister of Defense.[5] His attorney Alina Cruz argued that he could not be deported on those grounds because he was already exonerated of those charges in the landmark case Ford vs. Garcia when a jury found that he was not in control of his troops. It was determined in 1998 that Garcia's co-defendant General Vides Casanova and Casanova's cousin Col. Oscar Edgardo Casanova Vejar, the local military commander in Zacatecoluca, had planned and orchestrated the executions of the four Maryknoll churchwomen.[6] On April 12, 2014, an immigration court judge ruled against Garcia and called for his deportation.[7] On December 16, 2015, it was announced that an immigration appeals court upheld the decision to deport Garcia.[8] Garcia's attorney afterwards said they both plan to appeal the decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Georgia.[1] On January 8, 2016, American immigration officials deported General Garcia back to El Salvador.[9][10]

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See also

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