San Salvador (El Salvador), Jul 4 (AP) Three former El Salvador military officers were given lengthy prison sentences late Thursday over the 1982 killings of four Dutch journalists during the country’s civil war. It means former Defense Minister Gen Jose Guillermo Garc铆a, 91, former treasury police director Col Francisco Moran, 93, and Col Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, 85, will almost certainly die in jail. Also Read | Pakistan Building Collapse: 5 Dead and 7 Injured After Multi-Storey Residential Building Collapses in Karachi, Rescue Operation Underway. In the sentence, seen by The Associated Press, the court imposed 15-year sentences requested by the prosecution cumulative for each victim, adding up to 60 years. However, the court will follow the maximum sentence allowed at the time of the killings, which was 30 years. The court also ordered President Nayib Bukele, who is the commander in chief of the armed forces, to issue a public apology to the victims’ families. Also Read | Indian-Origin Man Arrested for Fighting With Co-Passenger on US Flight. Last month, a jury convicted the three officers after a trial that was closed to the public. Garcia and Moran are under police guard at a private hospital in San Salvador, where they will serve out their sentences at their expense, the court ruled. Reyes Mena 鈥 who was the former army commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade in Chalatenango 鈥 lives in the United States. In March, El Salvador’s Supreme Court ordered that the extradition process be started to bring him back. 鈥淭ruth and justice have won over impunity and this is a historic event for El Salvador,鈥 said Oscar Perez of the Fundacion Comunicandonos, which represents the families. The Dutch TV journalists 鈥 Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson 鈥 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. The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador, which was set up as part of a UN-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. An estimated 75,000 civilians were killed during El Salvador’s civil war, mostly by US-backed government security forces. (AP) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)