U.S. Indicts Salvador Rebel in Slaying of 2 Americans : Justice: The two were killed after their copter was downed. But Washington has no strong leads on him.

A Salvadoran guerrilla has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of executing two U.S. servicemen who survived the crash of a helicopter shot down in El Salvador on Jan. 2, Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh announced Tuesday.

Although the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebel group has said that two of its men were responsible, the grand jury here indicted only one, identified as “Porfirio,” on charges of killing the two Americans with a machine gun after they were carried from the downed helicopter with minor injuries.

The indictment shows how broadly the Justice Department intends to apply the legal authority it gained in 1986 to prosecute foreigners accused of murdering U.S. nationals outside the United States. Past prosecutions based on similar legal authority have targeted terrorists such as Lebanese hijacker Fawaz Younis. But the latest action reaches out to a fighter in a civil war in which Washington has backed the other side.

“We will use every available resource to prosecute those responsible for terrorist attacks on U.S. citizens anywhere in the world,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Robert S. Mueller III, who heads the Justice Department’s criminal division.

The rebel identified as Porfirio was charged with murdering Lt. Col. David Pickett, 40, of Clarksville, Tenn., and Pvt. Earnest Dawson, 20, of Bollingbrook, Ill., by shooting them at point-blank range with a machine gun.

A third soldier in the helicopter, Warrant Officer Daniel Scott, 39, of Ft. Sam Houston, Tex., died in the crash of the aircraft, which had been flying from Ilopango Air Base in El Salvador to Soto Cano, Honduras.

The indictment, which resulted from an investigation conducted by the FBI’s Miami division, was returned sealed on July 11. During the following 19 days, the government “tried to work some initiatives,” including efforts through “diplomatic channels,” to obtain custody of the defendant, said Bill Gavin, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami division.

Gavin and other officials would not elaborate, but it appeared that Washington has no strong leads to pursue in apprehending Porfirio. The U.S.-El Salvador extradition treaty limits the circumstances in which Salvadoran nationals can be sent for prosecution outside their homeland, according to Jay B. Stephens, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

“We will explore a variety of options to seek his apprehension and rendition to the United States,” Stephens said in an interview.

Another U.S. official, who would speak only anonymously, said the unsealing of the indictment represented a decision to turn away from diplomatic efforts to apprehend the defendant and to rely instead on focusing international attention on the case.

The FMLN initially denied that the two Americans had been shot to death but later reversed itself and announced the arrests of Porfirio and the rebel unit’s leader, identified variously as Dominguez or Aparicio, and said they had been charged with the crime.

Five other members of the unit were reportedly suspended, pending preparation of a trial that the FMLN said should be conducted in the presence of international observers. The trial apparently has never been held.

Asked why the grand jury did not indict others, Mueller said: “The investigation is continuing, and we indict only when we have sufficient evidence to believe a person will be convicted.”

Gavin said that there is “a good indication that a second person is involved,” but he would not elaborate.

Gavin and Stephens contended that the move against a member of a rebel group that the United States opposes does not set a precedent in the use of anti-terrorist statutes giving U.S. authorities extraterritorial jurisdiction.

“I really don’t think this is going after somebody in a particular group,” Gavin said of the indictment. Instead, it “sends out the message that nobody can do these kinds of things to Americans.”