Archbishop Assails U.S. on Murder Probe

SAN SALVADOR —  The head of the Roman Catholic Church in San Salvador accused U.S. authorities Sunday of “brainwashing” a witness to force her to recant testimony that placed uniformed gunmen near the residence of six Jesuit priests the night they were murdered.

Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas, choosing unusually strong words of criticism for American officials, said efforts to discredit the witness appear designed to cover up military participation in the killings.

Rivera y Damas’ comments, and an angry denial from U.S. Ambassador William Walker, represented the most public outbursts so far in a simmering confrontation between the church and the U.S. government over how the investigation into the Jesuits’ murders is being handled.

American officials have said that solving the case is crucial to whether U.S. aid to El Salvador is continued. The FBI has offered technical assistance, such as analysis of fingerprints, spent cartridges and other evidence.

But leaders of the Catholic Church here have questioned the willingness of U.S. Embassy officials who are guiding the investigation to pin the blame on members of the armed forces.

The only witness who has come forward, a Salvadoran cleaning woman named Lucia Barrera de Cerna, recanted her testimony after three days of questioning by FBI and State Department officers in Miami. Cerna and her family were flown to Miami under heavy guard Nov. 23 after she testified to a Salvadoran judge that she saw five or more gunmen in military uniforms enter the Central America University campus, site of the massacre.

Rivera y Damas, quoting an American attorney who has since interviewed Cerna, described the interrogations as “aggressive and violent.”

“Instead of being protected, as officials of the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador had promised, she was subjected . . . to a veritable brainwashing and to the blackmail that she would be deported if she was not telling the truth,” the archbishop said in a homily at the Sacred Heart Basilica here.

Rivera y Damas said Cerna--once free of the “psychological torment” of her interrogators--went back to her original story.

Ambassador Walker denied that the woman was coerced and said the archbishop was misinformed.

During the three days that Cerna was interrogated, she was given six polygraph tests that she failed, a source involved in the investigation said. The source said she changed her story until finally she said she had not seen anything the night that the six priests, including the university rector, and their two servants were pulled from their beds and shot to death.

“She seemed confused and frightened,” the source said. “She had left everything she knew behind and was concerned she would be dumped in the streets. We assured her she wouldn’t.”

But an attorney retained by American Jesuit priests to evaluate Cerna’s testimony concluded she recanted her story because she had been coerced and felt threatened.

The attorney, R. Scott Greathead, an assistant attorney general for the state of New York and a board member of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said that Cerna had been held virtually incommunicado and without counsel during “intensive” interrogations.

“It seems clear that they wanted to put her in a setting where they had complete control over her and would succeed in getting her to recant her testimony,” said Greathead.