SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – About 200 former soldiers and officers demonstrated in uniform outside El Salvador's Supreme Court to demand the release of four former soldiers wanted in Spain for the 1989 murder of six Jesuit priests.
Many of the soldiers wore uniforms from now-disbanded units implicated in rights violations during the country's 1980-1992 civil war.
Protest leader Timoteo Palacios said Wednesday that the statute of limitations on the killings of the priests had run out so the four should be released.
They were arrested Feb. 5 on a detention order issued by Interpol. The four are among 17 military suspects indicted by Spanish judge Eloy Velasco.
Five of the slain priests were Spanish and their killings sparked international outrage.
It is now up to El Salvador's Supreme Court to rule on the extraditions.