One of the most notorious atrocities of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, the 1989 killing of six Jesuit priests, is to be the subject of a new television series starring Mexican actor Diego Luna, producers said.

Focusing on the priests’ murders, as well as the 1980 slaying of San Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero, the series Cortando el Puente (Cutting the Bridge) will revisit crimes which remain highly sensitive from the bloody war that ended in 1992. The six priests, five of whom were Spanish, were shot along with a housekeeper and her daughter. A legal battle ensued between El Salvador and Spain, which has tried to extradite a group of Salvadoran soldiers accused of committing the murders.

Romero was gunned down after he had spoken out about rights abuses by the country’s US-backed army during the war. This year the Vatican said it had lifted a ban on Romero’s beatification after harbouring concerns he had Marxist views.

The series, which has a $3 million budget and is set to begin filming in El Salvador in the second half of 2015, will be based on reports by a journalist who covered the war.

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