A Spanish judge has issued warrants for 20 soldiers from El Salvador to be put on trial for the killing of five Spanish and one Salvadoran Jesuit priests during the Central American country's bloody 12-year civil war in 1989.

Judge Eloy Velasco ordered the arrest of 19 of those accused - one is in jail - for terrorist murder and crimes against humanity in the case of the priests, one of whom was rector of the Central American University at the time.

Spanish judges have used international law in recent years to begin proceedings against soldiers who have not been prosecuted in their own countries, including Chile, Argentina, Iraq, Israel and the United States.

Two officers were jailed in 1992 in El Salvador for the murder of the priests, but were freed little more than a year later under an amnesty.

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Hugo Martinez said he would hand any arrest warrant received over to his country's legal authorities.

Legal action in Spain was brought by a human rights group and the sister of one of the priests, who was Spanish.

Judge Baltasar Garzon succeeded in having Gen. Augusto Pinochet placed under house arrest in Britain in 1998. Pinochet was later returned to Chile and faced trial for crimes committed during his 1973-1990 dictatorship.

Argentine navy Capt. Adolfo Scilingo was sentenced to jail by a Spanish court in 2005 for human rights crimes, but attempts to prosecute US and Israeli soldiers on similar charges have failed. Proceedings against Iraqi soldiers are still under way.

Source: Reuters via Irish Times