Duarte Reportedly Identifies Killer of Salvador Bishop

WASHINGTON —  Former Salvadoran president Jose Napoleon Duarte has identified the assassin of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero as a bodyguard for a leader of El Salvador’s ruling Arena party, a television network said Wednesday.

Duarte, in an interview earlier in the week with the Spanish-language U.S. network Univision, said the man who pulled the trigger, killing Romero as he said Mass in 1980, was a bodyguard for Roberto d’Aubuisson, a leader of the ruling right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance, or Arena, the network said.

Univision released a transcript of the Duarte interview Wednesday.

“The direct author, the one who made the shot, was a Mr. Regalado . . . “ Duarte said. “I don’t know the (first) name of Regalado, he is . . . now he is nothing less than a bodyguard for D’Aubuisson.”

Duarte said he believed army Capt. Alvaro Saravia coordinated the assassination, acting on the orders of D’Aubuisson.

Duarte said he had evidence to prove his claims but that Arena-controlled courts would not accept it as valid because more than seven years had passed since the crime.

Duarte, who has terminal cancer, stepped down at the end of his term on June 1, handing power over to President Alfredo Cristiani.