Enforced Justice

The U.S. presses for progress

The slim, soft-spoken waitress was on duty last January when it happened. Two gunmen suddenly appeared in San Salvador's Sheraton Hotel and shot to death Michael Hammer and Mark David Pearlman, two American labor lawyers, and Jose Rodolfo Viera, head of the country's controversial land-reform program. Despite the public nature of the killings, TIME Correspondent James Willwerth has learned that if the U.S. Government had not tracked down the waitress, bolstered her courage, persuaded her to testify and actively pressured the Salvadoran government, authorities would not have arrested Ricardo Sol Meza, a wealthy industrialist, and Hans Christ, a businessman. Christ was picked up by the FBI in Miami and is now being held pending the outcome of extradition proceedings.

Salvadoran detectives summoned to the Sheraton Hotel after the shootings of Hammer, Pearlman and Viera managed to find not a single witness. But an American diplomat breakfasting in the Sheraton shortly afterward asked his waitress, Teresa Torres, if she had seen anything the night of the killings. "If I did," the woman replied, "I'm afraid they would kill me."

After further conversations in the coffee shop, Torres was finally persuaded by the diplomat to tell her story to U.S. embassy officials. She was then flown to Washington for protection and lodged with an official of the AFL-CIO, under whose auspices Hammer and Pearlman had been working on land reform when they were murdered. The labor organization has offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to their killers. While in Washington, Torres passed a polygraph test and convinced U.S. officials that she was a truthful witness.

As a result, Frederic Chapin, the American charge d'affaires in San Salvador, persuaded President Jose Napoleon Duarte to back a further investigation. Worried about her safety, U.S. officials based Torres in Washington and flew her to Central America for the proceedings.

Torres was interviewed by Arturo Argumedo, the Salvadoran Attorney General. In later interrogations she was treated with the hostility that Salvadoran officials often direct at witnesses. She was told that her name would be made public and that the Salvadoran government could not protect her. Moreover, the judge assigned to the case quit in fear of his life.

Despite all this, Torres testified that she had seen Sol Meza and Christ in the corridor leading to the dining room before the killings. They were making hand signals to someone outside, and she thought Christ was speaking into a radio or walkie-talkie. After the shots, she ran into the dining room and found the two men standing over the bodies.

Though both Sol Meza and Christ maintained their innocence, Torres' testimony caused them to be put under "provisional arrest," but that was only the beginning of a lengthy judicial process that could last a year or more and may or may not lead to a trial. To win conviction in a Salvadoran court, another witness is considered essential to corroborate Torres' testimony. Salvadoran prosecutors hint that they may produce one soon.

U.S. officials also finally managed, four weeks ago, to pressure the foot-dragging Salvadorans into arresting six soldiers in the other murder case involving Americans: the killings of three nuns and one woman lay missionary last December. The Salvadoran government clearly fears that U.S. aid may be endangered if it does not try far harder than usual to bring the slayers of Americans to justice. "We have hundreds of Salvadoran victims," says Attorney General Argumedo, "but we are investigating the deaths of foreigners because we need foreign help. Morally speaking, these crimes are not more serious than many others."

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