Those who are now sentenced to long prison terms are the former Minister of Defense, General José Guillermo García-Merino, a former high police chief and a colonel.
The three are 91, 93 and 85 years old, and will probably die in prison. The court also ordered President Nayib Bukele to give a public apology to the victims' relatives.
–Truth and justice have won, said Oscar Pérez from an organization that represents the families.
TV journalists Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemsen were in El Salvador to cover the country's civil war when they were murdered.
The journalists had been in contact with left-wing rebels in 1982 and planned to report from rebel areas. But they were attacked together with the guerrillas by Salvadoran soldiers and killed. In a report, the UN Truth Commission for El Salvador says that the motive for the ambush was precisely to kill the journalists.
An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador's civil war, most of them by US-backed government security forces.
