Nation : El Salvador Hit on Stalled Extradition

The State Department criticized the Supreme Court of El Salvador today for deciding against the extradition of a former Salvadoran air force captain who was arrested last year in Miami in the investigation of the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.

The Salvadoran government withdrew its request for the extradition of Alvaro Saravia after the court ruled last week there were no grounds for arresting him on charges he had violated his visa and that the extradition request itself was illegal. Romero, an outspoken critic of rightist death squads, was killed March 24, 1980, while saying Mass. In November, 1987, President Jose Napoleon Duarte released testimony by the driver of the getaway car that he worked for Saravia.