EX-U.S. EMPLOYE ALLEGES TORTURE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504010004-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 11, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
~ Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504010004-1
WASHINGTON POST
11 March i986
Ex-U.S. Employe Alleges Torture
Salvadoran Was Turned Over to Police as Rebel Collaborator
By Robert J. McCartney
W.nhmgtun Po,t Foreign Service
SAN SALVADOR-The U.S.
Embassy had considered her a mod-
el employe. Her salary of $14,024 a
year was among the highest paid to
a Salvadoran citizen at the mission,
and she received a "superior per-
formance" award in 1984 for her
work as an agriculture specialist for
the Agency for International Devel-
opment.
But everything changed for
Graciela Menendez de Iglesias on
Sept. 16, when two embassy secu-
rity agents appeared at her office to
talk to her.
The embassy accused Iglesias of
slipping information to left-wing
guerrillas that could have helped
them to track and assassinate U.S.
military and diplomatic personnel.
It handed her over to El Salvador's
Treasury Police, just outside the
embassy gate.
That was the start, Iglesias now
says, of a 15-day ordeal that still
gives her nightmares "every night."
During her detention at Treasury
Police headquarters, she says, she
was raped "numerous times," was
kept nude and blindfolded for most
of her stay, and was forced to stand
for hours, holding her arms in the
air with a strong jet of cold water
running down on her.
"I can still feel it [the water]," she
said, pointing to the top of her head
during a 21/2-hour interview in Mex-
ico City during which she repeat-
edly broke down and sobbed.
A military judge released Iglesias
on Oct. 8, saying there was not
enough evidence to hold her, and
she flew to Mexico two days later.
Now she plans to emigrate to Swe-
den with her husband and their two
sons.
Iglesias' account of her time with
the Treasury Police is a particularly
dramatic example of persistent al-
legations that El Salvador's military
security forces continue to mistreat
prisoners in their effort to obtain
confessions.
As is frequently the case in alle-
gations of torture, there were no
known witnesses to corroborate
Iglesias' story. Her account was
considered credible by diplomats of
iwo West European countries that
have taken an interest in the case
and by two other reliable sources
who are familiar with it.
The Treasury Police and the U.S.
government say that they remain
convinced that Iglesias was a left-
wing guerrilla collaborator and that
she made up the story about being
mistreated to embarrass the U.S.
and Salvadoran governments.
The Treasury Police director,
Col. Rinaldo Golcher, said Iglesias
was identified as a soy by two guer-
rilla intelligence chiefs, Carlos
Ze eda and Amadeo Cortes, who
were capture in September nn
had become informers.
Both said they had a source, code-
named "Veronica," in the rural de-
velopment section of the embassy,
Golcher said. He added that Cortes
had met her several times and had
identified her as Iglesias when
shown a set of photographs of em-
bassy personnel.
The two captured guerrillas said
"Veronica" had provided them with
unclassified documents, including
copies of the embassy's chatty inter-
nal newsletter, lists of home phone
numbers and addresses of embassy
personnel, and photos taken at em-
bassy parties, Golcher said.
When asked about Iglesias' alle-
gations of being abused at police
headquarters, Golcher said, "This is
the kind of statement that any im-
portant terrorist makes. They thus
have an excuse, that they were tor-
tured, if they said anything that com-
promises their comrades." He said
prisoners sometimes are blindfolded
or questioned for up to 24 hours
without sleep to press for a confes
sion. But he denied that interroga-
tion methods went beyond that.
Elliott Abrams, U.S. assistant
secretary of state for inter-Amer-
ican affairs, called Iglesias a woman
who was "believed to have lived a
lie over the last several years ....
I believe her story to be a fabrica-
tion." But Abrams, like other U.S.
officials, was careful to say only that
he "believed" that the Treasury Po-
lice did not abuse Iglesias.
Another U.S. official said, Tnete,
was not some member of the U.S.
,government watching her 24 hours
a day. I can't swear to you that that
[the mistreatment] didn't happen,
but I don't believe it happened."
The account b Iglesias, who de-
nied all charges that she was a spy,
was similar to t at o others Who
have charged mistreatment y -Sal-
va oran security forces. he ate
Department said tnts annual hu-
man rights report issued Feb. 13
that "there are still credible reports
of prisoners being subjected to
abuse by government officials" in El
Salvador. It emphasized, though,
that the situation has improved
since President Jose Napoleon
Duarte came to power in 1984.
"What I can't understand is,
knowing what the Treasury Police
are like, how could the embassy
hand her over?" one of the West
European diplomats asked. "Nobody
should be treated like that, regard-
less of what she had been doing," he
added.
The embassy said that it could
not have prevented the ?Treasury
Police from arresting Iglesias even
if it wanted to As a Salvadoran cit-
izen, she did not enjoy diplomatic
protection.
Iglesias said she was not physi-
cally abused (luring her first two
days at the Treasury Police's
sprawling barracks in San Sal-
vador's eastern outskirts. But her
jailers warned her that things would
get worse if she did not cooperate.
"They said if I didn't collaborate
with them, thgn my treatment was
going to change. They said they
were going to bring in my husband,
but they would only bring his head.
They repeated this over and over,"
she said.
The police changed tactics on her
second night, Iglesias said. She was
blindfolded, put in a vehicle, and
driven around for several hours.
"They said they were going to
throw me out. One would say,
'Where are we going to throw her?'
and the other would say, 'No, not
here.' The terror I felt then was the
worst," she said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504010004-1
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504010004-1
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Iglesias said they returned to the
barracks, she was placed in a less
comfortable cell, and the police took
all of her clothes and left her blind-
folded. She said that was the night
that the rapes began.
Iglesias said she was interrogated
repeatedly while being forced to
stand under the water jet.
"If I let down my arms, there was
always somebody to say, lift them
up again," she said. "They told me
my father and mother were going to
die, but everything could be differ-
ent if I collaborated." Embassy rep-
resentatives questioned Iglesias
three times while she was at the
Treasury Police barracks, and gave
her a lie detector test that a U.S.
official said she flunked.
Abrams and other U.S. officials
noted that Iglesias did not complain
of mistreatment in those talks, nor
to a representative of the govern-
ment's human rights commission,
who also visited her at the barracks.
"How can you say it if you're still
there inside?" she replies. She did
talk to a representative of the In-
ternational Committee of the Red
Cross, but said she asked him not to
publicize her protests because of
fears for her family.
Iglesias signed an unofficial con-
fession while at the Treasury Police
barracks. She says now that it was
written for her, and that she was
forced to sign it while blindfolded.
After 15 days at the barracks,
the maximum amount of time that a
suspect legally can be held there,
Iglesias was transferred to the Ilo-
pango jail for women, accused of
politically related crimes. Eight
days later, a military judge freed
her on grounds that the two Treas-
ury policemen who were witnesses
to her confession had not actually
heard her make the statements at-
tributed to her.
The two West European diplo-
mats said they believed Iglesias's
story because she seemed credible
in conversations and because of two
factors:
^ Iglesias did not seek to publicize
her story after she was released, as
one would expect if she were inter-
ested in a public relations coup. She
refused to speak to any reporter
until December and declined to be.
quoted until this interview.
The diplomats helped persuade
Iglesias to speak to the press, and
she said that she had become willing
to do so in part because weekly psy-
chiatric treatments in Mexico City
gradually are helping her.
^ The military judge ruled unusu-
ally quickly that there was insuffi-
cient evidence to hold Iglesias. The
diplomats said they thus doubted
that the evidence against her could
have been very strong.
Golcher said he believes that the
judge either had been bribed or had
received death threats, although he
offered no evidence of that. The
West European diplomats said they
did not want to be identified be-
cause their relations with their U.S.
counterparts could be damaged.
The embassy is said not to believe
that Iglesias provided information
that helped a guerrilla attack on a
sidewalk restaurant last June that
left four U.S. Marine embassy
guards, two private U.S. citizens,
and seven other persons dead.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504010004-1