Oscar Arnulfo Romero

The occupants of the red sedan tensed. Several yards ahead, blue-uniformed federales herded people out of their cars at a roadblock. Women and babies were crying. In their eagerness to find a cache of drugs or weapons the soldiers had overturned family belongings and heaved them on the side of the road. The guns the soldiers carried--and on occasion pointed at people--were loaded. A passenger in the car urged the driver not to be cocky with the young soldier who approached.

U.S. marshals have detained a prime suspect in the 1980 assassination of the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador in the wake of Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte's announcement that his government has solved the slaying and knows the killer's identity, the U.S. Marshals Service said Tuesday. The suspect, Alvaro Rafael Saravia, is a former Salvadoran army captain allegedly linked to El Salvador's "death squads" and a longtime associate of former army Maj.

President Jose Napoleon Duarte charged Monday that former army Maj. Roberto D'Aubuisson, a rightist leader long accused of ties to clandestine death squads, ordered the 1980 assassination of the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador. Duarte said the driver of the killer's car has provided "absolutely accurate" testimony implicating D'Aubuisson and a former army captain in the murder of Msgr. Oscar Arnulfo Romero. "The case of Msgr. Romero is solved.