El Salvador is bringing three of the men held responsible for the murder four Dutch journalists in 1982 to trial, local media reported.

Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag were in El Salvador in 1982 to report for television channel IKON on the bloody civil war there. They were ambushed and killed by government soldiers when trying to enter an area of the country held by guerrillas.

Two of the men, former defence minister José Guillermo García and former police chief Francisco Antonio Morán were arrested two years ago.  Morán lived in the US until 2016 but was then deported because of his role in human rights abuses in El Salvador.

The main suspect in the case is  former commander of the fourth infantry brigade colonel Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, who is thought to have ordered the killings. He was never indited until now although his decisive part in the plot to kill the journalists became clear in 1993 following an investigation by a UN truth-finding commission. He is still awaiting extraditition from the United States.

For decades attempts to bring the perpetrators to justice were blocked  by the military. A lack of resources and staff at the justice department of El Salvador also delayed efforts. Two of the men involved have since died.

Human rights organisation Fundación Comunicándonos y la Asociación Salvadoreña por los Derechos Humanos (ASDEHU) said the court’s decsion was “a historic moment in the search for truth and justice”.