American Woman Recounts Terror of Her Arrest, Jailing in El Salvador : Latin America: Church worker Jennifer Jean Casolo says she was set up by police. At first she was filled with fear, shock and anger. ‘Then a peace came over me.’

Jennifer Jean Casolo, the American church worker arrested in El Salvador for allegedly aiding leftist rebels, Thursday described her new life at the Ilopango Women’s Prison, where she sleeps on a floor crowded with political prisoners sharing straw mattresses and the camaraderie of their fellow inmates.

In her first extended interview since being arrested, Casolo gave a detailed account of what happened the night police raided her house and purportedly dug up more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition, explosives and grenades--an excavation, she said, that police would not allow her to witness. She told of how her emotions ranged from fear, shock and anger at what she maintains was a set-up to a tranquil confidence that her innocence would prevail.

“My first reaction was, who could hate me this much to be doing this?” she said in a two-hour interview with two reporters inside the prison.

“Then a peace came over me. I realized the circumstances were beyond my control.”

Casolo, 28, was arraigned Tuesday in a military court on charges of terrorism and possession of war weapons. She pleaded innocent. Judge Guillermo Romero Hernandez has until today to decide whether to bind her over for trial.

Casolo’s arrest came amid an urban offensive by guerrillas of the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), and a fierce government crackdown on church workers, union leaders and the press. Sporadic fighting continued in outlying areas of the capital Wednesday and Thursday.

Leftist politician Jorge Villacorta was detained Wednesday night as he arrived at El Salvador’s international airport, in the latest in a series of arrests of civilians considered sympathetic to the rebels. Villacorta, who belongs to a legal political party loosely allied to the guerrillas, was released Thursday.

Immediately after Casolo’s 4-hour, 50-minute closed court hearing Tuesday, the native of Thomaston, Conn., was transferred to the women’s prison at Ilopango, on the eastern outskirts of San Salvador.

She described the prison as a “breath of fresh air” after 10 days of arduous nighttime interrogations at the hands of National Police detectives.

“There’s a real spirit of sisterhood here,” she said, seated on one of the rundown prison’s red-tiled patios as dozens of inmates milled about. “These are strong, beautiful women.”

Casolo is housed with the political prisoners--those who were arrested for alleged activities in support of the FMLN. Many are never formally charged. She said their number has more than tripled since the offensive began Nov. 11. She is accompanied by Guadalupe Castro, a Salvadoran woman who was staying in her house and was arrested with her.

For safety, the political prisoners sleep in a large, bare dormitory with the women arrested for common crimes. Some of the estimated 60 women in the dorm get beds, but Casolo and many others sleep on straw mats or thin mattresses lined up on the floor.

“You can’t turn over without hitting the next person,” Casolo said.

As was evident in her court appearance and from descriptions offered by friends, Casolo maintained an undaunted spirit of optimism and religious fervor throughout the interview.

She declined to say how she believed the weapons ended up in the back yard of the white stucco house she rented in May. She also declined to discuss some details of the case--such as who the house belongs to and who else lived there. An American housemate is known to have fled the country the day after Casolo’s arrest.

But Casolo did offer this recollection of events the night of Nov. 25, when her house was raided and she and two Salvadoran friends spending the night were arrested:

One of the friends, 27-year-old Jose Vasquez, a tailor, had stopped by just before a dusk-to-dawn curfew in effect at the time and asked to stay the night since he could not reach his home in the poor neighborhood of Soyapango.

The other friend, Guadalupe Castro, 29, an accountant, had been staying at Casolo’s house since Nov. 15 because rocketing in her neighborhood was so fierce.

The trio was cooking spaghetti and beans when a knock at the door came at 10:45 p.m. Because of the curfew, Casolo immediately suspected trouble. She telephoned a friend, and had the friend hold while she went to the door.

The people at the door identified themselves as members of the armed forces. Casolo returned to the phone, told her friend to call the U.S. Embassy and hung up.

By then, one of the officers had already jumped over an outer fence, and about 25 members of the National Police Force swarmed the house. They handcuffed Vasquez, told him and the two women to sit in the front parlor and quickly began digging in the back yard.

The police and military officials have said they were acting on a tip from a captured guerrilla named Fausto Gallardo, who is said to have revealed the location of the arms cache. Casolo said Thursday she did not know Gallardo.

“I heard them moving things in the back yard, and there was a lot of noise and commotion,” Casolo said. “I tried to go and see what was happening. They would not let me. They kept us seated in the parlor.”

The phone rang and it was U.S. Consul Nicholas Ricciuti, Casolo said. She described to him what was happening, but police yanked the telephone cord from the wall before she could finish.

Eventually, the police allowed Casolo to approach the back yard. “They called me to the door. I looked out and saw white bags. I screamed, ‘What did you put there? What are you doing?’ ”

A consular officer, David Ramos, arrived at Casolo’s house about an hour after the search had commenced. He strode to the back yard, examined what was there and returned inside.

“He asked me if I had seen what was back there,” Casolo said. “He said, ‘It’s bad.’ ”

The police videotaped their work that night. They tried to film Casolo and her two friends with the weapons, but she refused to cooperate, pulling a T-shirt over her face.

“I didn’t want to be part of government propaganda,” she said.

In all, the raid lasted about three hours. When it was over, Casolo, Castro and Vasquez were taken to National Police headquarters. Casolo said she was not mistreated, but Castro said police blindfolded her, threatened to torture her with electrical shocks and said they would kidnap and torture her three-year-old daughter if she did not confess. Castro said she heard Vasquez being beaten in an adjoining interrogation room.

Casolo has received legal advice from former U.S. Atty. General Ramsey Clark and Salvadoran attorney Salvador Ibarra. But she said Thursday that she may represent herself if the case goes to trial, largely because she seems to have little faith in a Salvadoran justice system weakened by fear of the armed forces.

“I’m not sure where to lay my trust,” she said. “I know we are innocent . . . but I’m not sure how much having a good defense lawyer or not will go toward proving our innocence.”