After a court ruled that he was responsible for torture and killings while in command, the United States has deported former El Slavador general Eugenio Vides Casanova.

Vides Casanova was active as a general during El Salvador's civil war.

The 77-year-old man who was once El Salvador's defense minister and head of the National Guard has lived in Florida since 1989 and was at one time regarded by the U.S. as an ally.

Under a law designed to keep those accused of abuses in other countries from seeking refuge in the U.S., Vides Casanova was taken into custody in March.

Due to an amnesty law, Vides Casanova will not have to face charges in El Salvador.

As reported by the BBC, Vides Casanova arrived at El Salvador’s main airport with more than 100 other deportees.

His actions as an El Slavador general have linked him to the deaths of four U.S. churchwomen in 1980.

Vides Casanova argued against his deportation on the grounds that his military tactics were in fact backed by Washington at the time.

As reported in the New York Times, R. Scott Greathead, a lawyer who represented the brother of one of the four murdered churchwomen, said that the deportation “sends an enormously important message to El Salvador and the rest of the world that we are not going to harbor people who committed these violations even when at the time they appeared to be supporting U.S. policy.”

The U.S. has in fact started the extradition proceedings of another former Salvadoran military officer living in the U.S., a man named Inocente Orlando Montano Morales who is facing charges in Spain for the killing of five Jesuit priests.

It is estimated that least 70,000 people died in El Salvador's civil war from 1980-1992.