On March 24, 1980, the Archbishop Óscar Romero, was assassinated while performing Mass in San Salvador, El Salvador by a right-wing death squad. Romero had become unpopular with conservative elements in the country, when he began speaking out against government repression of the nation's poor and of his fellow priests. Read a biography of Archbishop Oscar Romero from the Kellogg Institute at Notre Dame University.



In 2003, the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), an American human-rights organization, filed a lawsuit in the United States against former Salvadorean Air Force Captain Álvaro Rafael Saravia for his alleged role in the assassination or Archbishop Romero. The suit was filed in a U.S. federal district court under the Alien Tort Claim Act (28 U.S.C. § 1350). In Doe v. Rafael Saravia, the defendant was found guilty of crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killing, resulting in a $10 million judgment against Saravia. Read a description of the case from CJA.