Salvadoran court orders president to answer on 1979 kidnap case

Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren stands after delivering the annual address to the nation on his fourth year in office to the legislature in San Salvador on June 1, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Oscar Rivera

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador’s Supreme Court has ordered President Salvador Sanchez Ceren to present any information he has on the fate of a South African diplomat who was kidnapped and disappeared by leftist guerrillas in 1979.

Then-Ambassador Archibald Gardner Dunn was kidnapped by a guerrilla faction that became part of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN. The rebels demanded a ransom but the diplomat was never turned over and his body never found.

Sanchez Ceren is a former leader of the FMLN, which disbanded and became a political party following 1992 peace accords.

Presidential press officer Roberto Lorenzana said Wednesday the court order “has a political motive to damage the president’s image.”

He said Sanchez Ceren was still an activist in the teachers’ movement at the time of the kidnapping.   /kga