President Antonio Saca

Six Jesuit priests killed by the army during El Salvador's civil war two decades ago were decorated with the country's highest honor Monday. Mauricio Funes, El Salvador's first leftist president, called the decorations an act of atonement for an atrocity during the 1980-1992 war between leftist rebels and a U.S.-backed right-wing government. He presented the National Order of Jose Matias Delgado to the families of the priests on the 20th anniversary of the massacre. "It means lifting the dirty carpet of hypocrisy and starting to purge our home of our recent history," said Funes, whose election in March brought to power the Farabundo Marti ... Read Full Story

Salvadoran police arrested a man suspected of involvement in the murder a day earlier of a high-profile Franco-Spanish journalist who had been investigating violent drug gangs. Christian Poveda, 54, was found dead near his vehicle on a road north of the capital San Salvador on Wednesday. An autopsy later confirmed he had been shot in the face four times, police and doctors said. Poveda was killed just weeks before the release of his latest documentary on violent drug gangs that blight the country. He had been filming in La Campanera, a suburb of El Salvador's capital where gangs known as "maras" pervade. Investigators said ... Read Full Story

A Franco-Spanish journalist has been assassinated in El Salvador just weeks before the release of his latest documentary on violent gangs that run drug and extortion rackets in this Central American country. Christian Poveda, 54, was found shot to death Wednesday near his vehicle on a road north of San Salvador, a National Civil Police spokesman told AFP. He had been filming in La Campanera, a suburb controlled by drug gangs known as "maras," before his death. Investigators said it is not clear whether he was the victim of a robbery or whether he had been killed by some of the very gang members ... Read Full Story

Four alleged gang members and a police officer have been arrested in the slaying of French documentary filmmaker Christian Poveda, Salvadoran authorities said Wednesday. Howard Cotto, subdirector of investigations for the national police, identified the arrested officer as Jose Napoleon Espinoza, an agent assigned to the 911 emergency phone system in Soyapango outside the capital, San Salvador. Espinoza allegedly collaborated with gang members, living in an area controlled by El Salvador's brutal "Maras" and receiving money from extortion schemes, Cotto told reporters. Poveda, a French citizen with Spanish parents, was found shot to death in a car outside the capital Sept. 3. He had ... Read Full Story

A French filmmaker who recently made a documentary about the lives of members of El Salvador's street gangs was shot dead Wednesday in the Central American country, authorities said. The body of Christian Poveda, 52, was found inside a car in a Tonacatepeque, a rural region north of the capital, police said. He had been shot in the head. President Mauricio Funes said he was "devastated" by the journalist's killing. Salvadoran Public Safety Minister Manuel Melgar deplored the "repugnant and reproachable criminal act" and vowed police would work tirelessly to find Poveda's killers. Earlier this year, Poveda, who lived in El Salvador, made the ... Read Full Story