Casolo Freed and Deported by El Salvador

Jennifer Jean Casolo, the American church worker charged with hiding arms for leftist guerrillas, was freed from jail under a court order Wednesday and hastily deported from El Salvador.

The release appeared to be politically motivated, but President Alfredo Cristiani, speaking at a press conference, denied it. He said the judge handling her case determined that there was not enough evidence to try her. The president added, however, that he himself is “morally convinced of Miss Casolo’s guilt.”

Casolo, 28, was escorted out of Ilopango Women’s Prison by U.S. Ambassador William Walker and whisked to Comalapa International Airport in an embassy car. She proclaimed her innocence to reporters before boarding a commercial flight to Miami that had been delayed three hours for her departure.

“I don’t think I have suffered as terribly as thousands and thousands of Salvadorans have suffered here,” Casolo said.

Casolo did not meet the media when she arrived at Miami International Airport in the evening. The Rev. Daniel M. Long, a Lutheran pastor and chairman of San Antonio-based Christian Education Seminars, the religious group that Casolo worked for in El Salvador, explained that she was “basically exhausted by her experience.”

Long, who accompanied Casolo on the plane, said the U.S. government may have played a role getting her out of jail but “we feel it was her innocence that got her released.”

The Thomaston, Conn., woman had lived in El Salvador for four years, coordinating tours of visiting church workers and congressional aides for Christian Education Seminars. She was arrested Nov. 25 after a raid on her house in which police unearthed a cache of 20,000 rounds of ammunition, grenades and explosives in her back yard.

She faced charges of terrorism and possession of war weapons.

Two Salvadorans, Jose Vasquez and Guadelupe Castro, who were arrested with Casolo that night remained in jail Wednesday.

Casolo’s release apparently was an attempt by President Cristiani to counter growing U.S. criticism of his government’s treatment of dissidents and foreign humanitarian workers. Her arrest came amid the largest rebel offensive in 10 years of civil war and a subsequent government crackdown on groups perceived as supporting the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front guerrillas.

Cristiani denied that Casolo’s release was politically motivated but acknowledged that her case had been given special treatment.

“Obviously, because of what she is and being a foreigner, we take greater care in explaining why (things are done),” he said.

However, he maintained, “this is strictly a judicial decision that the judge has made. It is a political decision that I have made to deport her.”

Although Cristiani attributed Casolo’s release to Judge Guillermo Romero Hernandez’s decision about insufficient evidence, shortly before the press conference the judge told reporters that he was still studying a motion for release from her Salvadoran lawyer and that there were no new developments in the case.

In Connecticut, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) had already reported that Cristiani told him by telephone that Casolo would be released.

Romero had ruled Friday that there was sufficient evidence to hold Casolo on terrorism charges. He did not appear at his office Wednesday afternoon to answer questions about his reported change of heart.

The evidence against Casolo included a videotape that police had made of her the night of the raid. An edited version released to reporters showed bags of weapons being pulled out of the ground and Casolo curled up in a fetal position in a chair. When they tried to film her in front of the weapons, she refused, covering her face and saying that she was “not responsible” for the stash.

“I didn’t want to be part of government propaganda,” she told The Times in a prison interview last week.

Police said they raided Casolo’s house on a tip from a guerrilla who was captured two days earlier. In his statement to police, the alleged guerrilla, Fausto Gallardo, fingered the house where “a foreigner” lived, but he did not specifically accuse her of involvement.

Casolo’s attorney, Salvador Ibarra, had filed a motion for her release on Monday, arguing a lack of evidence. He also argued that the case should be dropped because the laws under which Casolo might be tried were not in effect at the time of her arrest.

Cristiani said the case is not being dropped and that Casolo could be called back for trial or tried in absentia if further evidence is discovered.

In reality, the case is likely to disappear, although Cristiani is expected to face criticism from the military and the extreme right for freeing Casolo.

The U.S. Embassy had seemed to be pushing for Casolo to face trial as a way to demonstrate that the highly irregular Salvadoran justice system can be made to work. The Salvadoran jail system holds many people who have never been convicted of a crime. Nor has the system ever convicted a high-ranking military officer of a political killing, despite thousands of civilian murders by alleged military and paramilitary death squads during a decade of war.

During her arraignment, Casolo had said she hoped to stay in El Salvador to face trial and test the justice system. She believed she would be proven innocent and hoped to say and continue her work here.

But many Salvadorans and foreigners believed it would have been dangerous for Casolo to stay in the country. The Rev. Long said Casolo told him she would still like to go back to El Salvador as soon as possible, but he said there are questions of her security.

As she prepared to leave El Salvador, Casolo said, “I hope the Salvadorans have equal rights under the law.”

She said she considered her release to be proof of her innocence. After she left, Ambassador Walker said, “Jennifer was very sad because she loves this country, but she was happy everything had ended and she was going to be home for Christmas.”

In Miami, Long told reporters that “it was very emotional for her to be taken from the jail to the airport.” During the flight home, he said, she expressed concern for Castro and Hernandez, the two visitors arrested with her, whose lives “she believes . . . are at risk.” While in jail, Casolo was not beaten or tortured, Long said. However, she reported that “there were psychological things, games played with her head and interrogations during the night,” he said, adding that she said that “she heard others being beaten in prison.”

Casolo said she knew nothing about the weapons that were found buried at the house where she was staying, Long said.

“The arms were there long before she was there (in the house) or they came at night unbeknownst to her,” he reported.

She did bury some things “of a personal nature”--a cassette of a popular song and some books--”when new laws, (and) security forces made it dangerous to have these things in one’s possession,” Long said.

Mike Clary, a free-lance writer in Miami, also contributed to this report.