‘People Cared,’ Casolo Says of Her Release : El Salvador: She thinks her arrest was part of a move to ‘stop the work of the churches’ in the war-torn country.

Church worker Jennifer Jean Casolo, expelled from El Salvador after spending 18 days in jail on accusations of stockpiling weapons for leftist rebels, speculated Thursday that her arrest was “part of a whole action to stop the work of the churches in El Salvador.”

At a news conference at La Guardia Airport, Casolo, 28, tearfully declared again--as she has since her arrest Nov. 25--that she was innocent of charges aimed at connecting her with a cache of 20,000 rounds of ammunition, grenades and explosives unearthed in her back yard.

“I never doubted my innocence. That was clear. But I did doubt the ability for justice to be served there, and it was only because people cared about me--friends, family and people who never even knew me--that I can be here today,” she said.

The news conference was Casolo’s first since her release Wednesday. She had refused interviews upon her arrival in Miami that night, she explained at La Guardia, because she had “needed a night to myself, to reflect and think about all those in El Salvador, and what there was here ahead.”

The most frightening part of her time in jail, Casolo said, were three “heavy interrogation sessions” one evening. At one point, a female interrogator boasted that she was free to do with Casolo as she liked, recalled the church worker, who, at just 5 feet tall, was barely visible behind the microphones clustered on a podium facing 18 television cameras.

Casolo was to proceed to her hometown, Thomaston, Conn., where a celebration was being planned at Town Hall to mark the homecoming of the high-achieving young woman who had once been student body president, cheerleader and yearbook editor of the local high school.

People familiar with her work in El Salvador for the U.S.-based Christian Education Seminars had said they doubted Casolo had anything to do with the arms found on the property where she lived. They noted that she had scrupulously maintained her neutrality as she helped organize tours in El Salvador for U.S. officials and other Americans.

Now, however, “I think it’s time that I tell what, in 4 1/2 years of being in El Salvador, I’ve seen with my eyes. It doesn’t mean taking sides, but it does mean becoming a voice for justice, rather than just a bridge between North Americans and Salvadorans,” Casolo said.

She was deported from El Salvador after a Salvadoran judge ordered her released for lack of evidence. But Salvadoran President Alfredo Cristiani, who gave the deportation order, said he remained “morally convinced of Miss Casolo’s guilt.”

Church groups and some in Congress had demanded her release. But Casolo said she felt betrayed by Bush Administration officials who had suggested that there was solid evidence to support the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government’s charges of terrorism and possession of war weapons.

“Shameful, disgraceful. You know, how can the Bush Administration say that they’re working to create a just society in El Salvador when they can’t even treat an American citizen with the rights of a just society?” Casolo demanded.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Administration is “glad she’s back in the United States, has a chance to go home again.” He added that the Administration had done no more or less on her behalf than it would for any other American arrested abroad, which is to “make sure that she receives fair and due treatment.”

In El Salvador, a judge ordered the release Thursday of six Salvadorans detained with Casolo. The six freed are Maria Guadalupe Castro, Jose Federico Vasquez, Abdulio Azmitia, Carlos Umana, Celestina Umana and Fausto Gallardo Valdez.

A detention order against a seventh person, Carlos Aguilar, who was still at large, was revoked.