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Former Salvadoran army officers convicted in 1982 killing of 4 Dutch TV journalists

Three former Salvadoran military officers were convicted by a five-person jury late Tuesday for the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists during the Central American nation’s civil war. They received 15-year prison sentences.

A jury made up of five women convicted the three men of murder in a lightning trial that began Tuesday morning in the northern city of Chalatenango, said Oscar Pérez, lawyer for the Foundation Comunicandonos that represented the victims’ families. Pérez said prosecutors had requested minimum 15-year prison sentences for all three.

Convicted were former Defense Minister Gen. José Guillermo García, 91, former treasury police director Col. Francisco Morán, 93, and Col. Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, who was the former army commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade in Chalatenango.

García and Morán are under police guard at a private hospital in San Salvador, while Reyes Mena lives in the United States. In March, El Salvador’s Supreme Court ordered that the extradition process be started to bring him back.

Pérez said that in addition to the convictions of the former high-ranking officers, the judge condemned the government for the delayed justice and ordered the commander in chief of the armed forces, President Nayib Bukele, to issue a public apology to the victims.

In this March 11, 1982 photo, from left, Jan Kuiper, director; Koos Koster, producer; Joop Willemsen, cameraman; and Hans ter Laag, soundman; walk north of San Salvador, El Salvador, days before they were killed. 

AP Photo, File)


The Dutch TV journalists – Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson – had linked up with leftist rebels and planned to spend several days behind rebel lines reporting. But Salvadoran soldiers armed with assault rifles and machine guns ambushed them and the guerrillas.

García was deported from the U.S. in 2016, after a U.S. judge declared him responsible for serious human rights violations during the early years of the war between the military and the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front guerrillas.

The prosecution of the men was reopened in 2018 after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a general amnesty passed following the 1980-1992 war.

It moved slowly, but in March 2022, relatives of the victims and representatives of the Dutch government and European Union demanded that those responsible for killing Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson be tried.

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp welcomed the convictions.

“This is an important moment in the fight against impunity and in the pursuit of justice for the four Dutch journalists and their next of kin,” Veldkamp said in a message on social media.

“Grateful to the authorities of El Salvador and to all those who have worked tirelessly on this case,” he added.

According to Foundation Comunicandonos, Jan Kuiper died just two days before his 40th birthday and his colleague Hans ter Laag wrote a letter to his girlfriend shortly before the fatal trip, saying: “My dear, this Wednesday the guerrillas will take us to the liberated zone. We are going to Chalatenango, where the armed struggle is taking place. It is a very dangerous trip and must be secret.”

Koos Koster studied theology in college and published several books about international politics, Foundation Comunicandonos said. The tombstone at his graveside features an image, made by his sister, depicting a biblical story and next to it the motto: “Survival compels.”

Joop Willensen planned to marry his longtime partner, Yata Matsuzaki, in Mexico after his trip to El Salvador, she said.

The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, which was set up as part of a U.N.-brokered peace agreement in 1992, concluded there was clear evidence that the killings were the result of an ambush set up by Reyes Mena with the knowledge of other officials, based on an intelligence report that alerted of the journalists’ presence.

Other members of the military, including Gen. Rafael Flores Lima and Sgt. Mario Canizales Espinoza were also accused of involvement, but died. Canizales allegedly led the patrol that carried out the massacre of the journalists.

Former Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia is surrounded by press as he arrives at the Oscar Arnulfo Romero international airport in San Luis Talpa, El Salvador, Jan. 8, 2016.

Salvador Melendez / AP


Juan Carlos Sánchez, of the nongovernmental organization Mesa Contra la Impunidad, in comments to journalists, called the trial a “transcendental step that the victims have waited 40 years for.”

An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador’s civil war, mostly by U.S.-backed government security forces.

The trial was closed to the public.

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Dutch museum exhibits Victorian-era condom adorned with erotic art of a naughty nun and clergymen

The Hague, Netherlands — The Netherlands’ national museum has a new object on display that merges art with Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District: a nearly 200-year-old condom, emblazoned with erotic art.

The Rijksmuseum said in a statement that the playful prophylactic, believed to be made around 1830 from a sheep’s appendix, “depicts both the playful and the serious side of sexual health.”

It is part of an exhibition called “Safe Sex?” about 19th century sex work that opened on Tuesday.

The condom, possibly a souvenir from a brothel, is decorated with an erotic image of a nun and three clergymen.

A condom featuring an erotic art print, believed to have been made from a sheep’s appendix around 1830, is seen on display inside the Netherlands’ Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum/Kelly Schenk


The phrase “This is my choice” is written along the sheath in French. According to the museum, this is a reference to the Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting “The Judgment of Paris,” which depicts the Trojan prince Paris judging a beauty contest between three goddesses.

“Acquiring the condom has enabled us to focus on 19th-century sexuality and prostitution, a subject that is underrepresented in our collection. It embodies both the lighter and darker sides of sexual health, in an era when the quest for sensual pleasure was fraught with fears of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases — especially syphilis,” the museum says on its website.

A woman walks behind a condom emblazoned with an erotic art print, believed to have been made from a sheep’s appendix around 1830, in the Netherlands’ Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum/Kelly Schenk


The museum said it acquired the condom at an auction about six months ago with support from the F.G. Waller-Fonds, a memorial fund established in 1938 in memory of one of the Rijksmuseum’s benefactors.

The piece of sexually-themed art history was to remain on display until the end of November, the museum said.

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Wilders Walks Out: Dutch Government Collapses, Fresh Elections Loom

Dutch anti-mass-migration firebrand Geert Wilders is gambling on a snap election to give a fresh mandate to his border control plan, as he withdraws his party from the coalition government.

Geert Wilders blamed the other parties in the Netherlands’ four-way coalition government for refusing to sign off on his asylum and border reform plans, and for trying to change the original coalition agreement, when he withdrew the votes of his Party for Freedom (PVV) members of parliament on Tuesday morning. Prime Minister Dick Schoof, a technocrat installed as leader as the other parties were unwilling to crown kingmaker Wilders as Prime Minister himself, will make a statement to the Dutch parliament on Tuesday.

While the other parties involved, the Farmer–Citizen Movement (BBB) party, the New Social Contract (NCC), and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), initially expressed hope of inviting support from the left to keep the government limping on — and this is theoretically feasible — observers doubt that this would be likely. The government will continue in ‘caretaker’ mode. It will be unable to make major new decisions, and it appears the only option left is fresh national elections to select a new parliament.

As reported last week, Wilders had been expressing increasing frustration. He claimed that despite being the largest party in government, the migration reform agenda the PVV had been elected to implement was being stymied. Wilders said: “We have not signed for a cabinet where only asylum seeker centres will be added. The PVV has been very reasonable and patient over the past year, but as of today, the gloves are going off.”

Wilders has called for the Dutch border to be shut to new asylum seekers, the chain-migration “family reunification” programme to be suspended, an increase in deportations, and that migrants be de-prioritised for government-funded housing. If these basic policy points were not met, he would withdraw his party’s votes in the parliament and collapse the government, which happened today.

Going back to the country for a fresh mandate is fraught with risk for Wilders. His recent polling has put PVV at around 20 per cent, less than the 23.5 per cent he achieved at the 2023 national elections, and a fall from near-30-per-cent polling he was enjoying last year in the early days of this government. Yet, as recently demonstrated in Poland, upset right-wing victories are totally possible when proposals are pitched against a nakedly globalist alternative, and by withdrawing from government over its failure to deliver any meaningful change on border issues, Wilders will have an urgent electoral issue to sell to the public.

Wilders was roundly condemned by his erstwhile coalition partners for withdrawing his support, who characterised him as having walked away when things were getting tough, rather than acting on principle. The opposition parties, however, treated the prospect of fresh elections — and a stab at power — with glee.

Frans Timmermans, the former European Union commissioner who now leads the Netherlands’ largest opposition party, the Green-Left, said, “We want elections as soon as possible,” explaining that a stable government is impossible otherwise. Denk, the Netherlands’ Islamist party, said they saw fresh elections as a chance to prevent the asylum reform from succeeding and to prevent the right from ever governing the country again, reports NOS.

The party, whose spokesman had controversially said of Wilders’ PVV party coming in first place in the 2023 elections that it felt “like my 9/11,” stated through party leader Stephan van Baarle on Tuesday: “The cabinet wanted to implement terrible plans… The real battle begins now. I hope that there will be as large a counter-movement as possible and that there will never be another far-right government.”

While a date for fresh elections has not yet been called, the last time a Dutch government collapsed, a vote was held four-and-a-half months hence. The election campaign featured several televised debates and saw FvD leader Thierry Baudet beaten around the head with a beer bottle by far-left ‘Antifa’ activists as he campaigned.



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Dutch prosecutors seek record $250 million from fugitive drug lord believed to be hiding over 4,000 miles away

Dutch prosecutors said Monday they were seeking to confiscate a record $253 million from one of Europe’s most notorious drug lords, thought to be hiding in Sierra Leone.

The illegal assets amassed by Jos Leijdekkers, also known as “Bolle Jos” or “Chubby Jos,” were proceeds from cocaine trafficking, as well as purchases of gold and luxury items, the public prosecutors said.

Leijdekkers is thought to have made 114 million euros from 14 cocaine shipments over less than a year.

According to intercepted communications, the 33-year-old also spent 47 million euros on 975 kilograms of gold over less than six months.

The kingpin additionally bought real estate including a hotel in Turkey and apartments in Dubai, the prosecutors alleged.

Luxury goods including two Bentley cars, designer bags, jewellery and watches, were also added to the total of illicit assets, bringing the total to $253 million.

“This is… only a first step towards tracing Leijdekkers’ assets,” the prosecutors said.

Convicted cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers attends a church service in Tihun, Sierra Leone, January 1, 2025, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video.  

First Lady Fatima Maada Bio via Facebook/via REUTERS


A Rotterdam court last June sentenced Leijdekkers in absentia to 24 years in prison for ordering a murder and organizing cocaine shipments.

He is on Europol’s most-wanted list, with the European police body offering over $225,000 for information leading to his arrest.

“Leijdekkers is considered to be one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking,” according to Europol.

In January, Dutch authorities said they were “absolutely certain” he was hiding out in Sierra Leone. The BBC reported that Dutch prosecutor Wim de Bruin said the fugitive’s return to the Netherlands was of “the highest priority.”

Images apparently showing Leijdekkers in the company of officials as high as President Julius Maada Bio have sparked speculation the cocaine lord has cozied up to Sierra Leone’s political class — including the president’s daughter.

Suspicions he was in Sierra Leone arose after the country’s First Lady Fatima Bio posted pictures and a video on social media that showed a man strongly resembling Leijdekkers at a religious service, also attended by President Bio.

Exiled Sierra Leone opposition figure Mohamed Mansaray has accused Bio and his government of “offering refuge” to the drug lord.

According to Mansaray, Leijdekkers has coupled up with the president’s daughter Agnes Bio, who is seen accompanying the drug lord in the images.

Leijdekkers is also believed to be involved in the disappearance and death of Naima Jillal, a woman who went missing in 2019 after she got into a car in Amsterdam, according to Europol. Intercepted messages allegedly showed that Leijdekkers “played an important role in Jillal’s disappearance,” the agency said.

“For a long time, there was no trace of Naima Jillal, until photos of a woman believed to be her were found on a phone seized in the Marengo investigation,” Europol said. “The photos show that she was most likely tortured and is probably no longer alive.”

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Traces of cannabis found in Haribo Cola candy in the Netherlands

Haribo is recalling packs of sweets in the Netherlands after some were found to contain traces of cannabis.

The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Agency (NVWA) warned any potential customers of the 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) bags of Happy Cola F!ZZ not to eat the sweets because they may cause dizziness.

NVWA spokesperson Saida Ahyad told French news agency AFP that, “Cannabis was found in the cola bottles in question.”

The NVWA also said the issue only concerns three bags so far but all stock has been recalled as a precaution, adding that it is working with authorities to investigate the cause of the contamination.

Local Dutch media reported that a family in Twente became “quite ill” after eating the candy and reported the incident to police. After a forensic investigation, police discovered traces of cannabis and alerted the NVWA, according to the media reports.

A Haribo spokesperson told CBS News sister network BBC News it was working with police to “establish the facts around the contamination.”

Haribo Vice-President of Marketing told AFP the incident is “a live issue and we are working closely with the Dutch authorities to support their investigation and establish the facts.”

The recall applies to the items under the production code L341-4002307906, with a best before date of January 2026.

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Shipwreck found off Australia’s coast 168 years after it sank, killing 16 crew members

Researchers have discovered the likely location of a Dutch ship that sank off the coast of Australia over 150 years ago. 

The Koning William de Tweede was an 800-ton ship that was sailing near Robe, South Australia when it sank in June 1857. Hundreds of Chinese miners had disembarked from the vessel just days before the sinking, the Australian National Maritime Museum said on social media. 

The ship was sailing with 25 crew members when it sank, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Sixteen of the crew members died in the sinking, ABC reported. 

The Koning Willem de Tweede.

Eric van Straaten / Australian National Maritime Museum


The museum began working with Silentworld Foundation, which studies Australia’s maritime history, as well as Flinders University and South Australia’s Department for Environment and Water. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands also supported the research efforts, the museum said. 

Dr. James Hunter, with the maritime museum, told ABC that researchers found parts of the ship on the seabed of Guichen Bay. Those parts included the ship’s winch and iron components, Hunter said. 

A component from the Koning Willem de Tweede.

Australian National Maritime Museum


The efforts to find the ship have been ongoing for about four years, the Silentworld Foundation said on social media. Poor visibility underwater hindered the work, Hunter told ABC. Researchers believed they had identified the ship in 2022, but it took until March 2025 to confirm the vessel’s identity. 

“The latest visit to Robe … led to the probable identification of the shipwreck,” the Silentworld Foundation said on social media. “The visibility was challenging, but still enough for the team to make this incredible call!” 

A diver underwater near the Koning Willem de Tweede.

Australian National Maritime Museum


The maritime museum said on Facebook that future monitoring will be done at the site. Those visits will assess the site and work to “uncover more of this important piece of maritime history,” the museum said. 

The waters off Australia’s coast are littered with shipwrecks and several have been found in recent months.

Last July, Australian scientists pinpointed the final resting place of the Noongah, a huge freighter that sank in rough seas in 1969, killing 21 of the 26 crew members on board.

Three months before that, a small underwater drone located a century-old vessel in a region known as a “ship graveyard” off Australia’s coast. That discovery came just weeks after an expedition found the wreck of the coal steamship SS Nemesis off Australia’s coast, more than a century after it sank.

Kerry Breen

Kerry Breen is a news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News’ TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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