The retrial in the case of five water defenders from the Santa Marta community in the northern Cabañas department has been postponed again. The retrial, denounced as an illegal instance of double jeopardy by leaders from the Santa Marta Association for Economic Development (ADES), follows calls from ADES and allied social movement organizations for the judge to recuse himself based on a conflict of interest in the case.

In a statement released on April 4, leaders of the Santa Marta community, along with allied organizations, revealed that Hugo Banzer Flores Alas, the judge slated to hear the case, is a former member of the National Guard, one of the principal state institutions that participated in El Salvador’s 12-year civil war. Given that the defendants are being accused of a crime related to the disappearance of a woman in the context of the war, while they were members of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), the supporters of the Santa Marta 5 state that it “constitutes a serious ethical violation and a conflict of interest to judge ex-combatants who were his adversaries in the war.” The statement concludes, “Therefore, we express our total lack of confidence in his  impartiality and judgment.”

The judge’s former affiliation with the National Guard was revealed by journalist César Fuentes during an interview with Peter Natarén, a Santa Marta community leader. Natarén reminded Fuentes that, during a previous phase of the trial, the Supreme Court removed a judge from the case following an appeal by the attorney general’s office because he shared a last name with a former FMLN politician. The two are not related.

Natarén warned that this revelation “puts the integrity of the process, which was already at risk, in an even more precarious position.”

The National Guard was dissolved through the 1992 Peace Accords following its involvement in some of the country’s most infamous massacres and human rights abuses, committed before and during the civil war.

Shortly following the implementation of the Peace Accords, a National Reconciliation law was also approved, granting amnesty to most participants in the civil war. In January 2024, 185 academics and lawyers from 21 countries sent a letter to El Salvador’s attorney general asserting that the case against the Santa Marta 5 was in direct violation of the law.

In an April 9 statement, Santa Marta leaders denounced the delay as an attempt “to prolong the suffering of the environmental defenders and to wear down the Santa Marta community and the ADES association. It also seeks to make social movement organizations focus their energy, time, and dedication on the defense of the criminalized environmentalists, to the detriment of the struggle against the reactivation of metals mining that dangerously threatens the water and life of the country.”

The organization believes that the delay of the trial based on logistical issues is “not very credible, as the hearing had been reconfirmed by the court at the end of last week when it issued an arrest warrant for the defendants and... a summons to the relevant parties, signifying that everything was ready for the hearing to take place.”

The Santa Marta 5 were arrested in January 2023 and were held in eight months of pretrial detention and fourteen months of house arrest before being found not guilty at an October 2024 trial. Despite an international observer mission applauding the fairness of the trial, the attorney general’s office appealed the ruling without introducing any new evidence or witnesses.

In December 2024, a Cojutepeque appeals court ordered that the case be moved to a different jurisdiction and retried. Critics decried the move as double jeopardy and an attempt to continue to criminalize community leaders who are now in their third year of judicial proceedings.

A February retrial date was postponed when the defendants refused to attend, declaring, “There is no guarantee of a fair and legal trial and to expose ourselves to this political decision puts our lives at risk” Weeks later, a key defense witness and prominent critic of Nayib Bukele, Eugenio Chicas, was arrested. Chicas is a longtime FMLN leader and former chief magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.

The Santa Marta 5 were leaders of the movement to outlaw metals mining in El Salvador, which succeeded in 2017, following a campaign that spanned more than a decade. Through the Santa Marta Economic Development Association (ADES), they had warned of Nayib Bukele’s intention to overturn the popular mining ban as far back as 2021. It was overturned days before Christmas last year, despite widespread opposition.

Following the postponement of the February trial dates, ADES called on “all social, academic, union and religious organizations, and the entire population in general, to become one body in the defense of water, health and the life of present and future generations.” Since then, hundreds of thousands of petitions calling for the reinstatement of the metals mining ban, collected by a national coalition of churches, civil society organizations, and popular movement groups, were delivered to the Legislative Assembly. A diverse alliance also marched to the steps of the National Library on March 24, the 45th anniversary of Oscar Romero’s assassination, in support of a ban on metals mining.

ADES president Vidalina Morales, in an April 9 press conference, reiterated the organization’s commitment to fighting against the reactivation of mining. “We are going to continue fighting [for the freedom of our comrades]. But the our main focus of our resistance will continue to be defending our lands against metals mining.”