Salvadoran court orders arrest of ex-president Cristiani over civil war atrocity

FILE PHOTO: Civil rights activists light candles as they participate in a memorial in honor of six Jesuit priests, who were murdered during the country's civil war, at El Salvador del Mundo square in San Salvador, El Salvador, March 15, 2016. The sign in Spanish reads: "the voice of justice and no one can shut". REUTERS/Jose Cabezas. REUTERS/Jose Cabezas/File Photo

SAN SALVADOR (Reuters) - A court in El Salvador on Friday ordered the provisional arrest of former President Alfredo Cristiani for alleged involvement in covering up the murder of six Jesuit priests and two of their staff during the country's civil war in the 1980s.

Prosecutors accuse the former president, who governed the Central American country between 1989 and 1994, of first failing to stop, then helping to cover up the murder by soldiers of the priests, their housekeeper and her daughter at the campus of the Central American University in the early hours of Nov. 16, 1989.