The trial of three of the men held responsible for the murder four Dutch journalists in El Salvador in 1982 has been delayed until June 3, the brother of one of the murdered men has told broadcaster NOS.

Koos Koster, Jan Kuiper, Joop Willemsen and Hans ter Laag were in El Salvador to report for television channel IKON on the bloody civil war there. They were ambushed and killed by government soldiers when trying to enter an area of the country held by guerrillas.

Two of the suspects, former defence minister José Guillermo García and former police chief Francisco Antonio Morán were arrested three years ago.  Morán lived in the US until 2016 but was then deported because of his role in human rights abuses in El Salvador.

The main suspect in the case is  former commander of the fourth infantry brigade colonel Mario Adalberto Reyes Mena, who is thought to have ordered the killings.

He was never indited until now although his decisive part in the plot to kill the journalists became clear in 1993 following an investigation by a UN truth-finding commission.

The trial should have begun on Wednesday and relatives of the four had already arrived in El Salvador when they learned of the delay.

“We had hoped for recognition that this was a planned murder and that people would be found guilty,” Gert Kuiper, the brother of murdered Jan, said.

The case has been delayed because the lawyer of one of the suspects could not be in court, although Kuiper described it as a “legal trick”.