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There have been several attempts to restart the genocide case against Rios Montt, all of which have failed, leaving the case in limbo.
The three Guatemalan judges who overturned the 2013 genocide and war crimes conviction of former U.S.-backed Guatemala dictator Efrain Rios Montt will now be investigated.
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On Wednesday, the Center for Human Rights Legal Action, CALDH, one of the civil groups involved in the genocide case against Rios Montt, announced that it is filing legal motions against three former judges of the Constitutional Court. These include Alejandro Maldonado Aguirre, Hector Hugo Perez Aguilera and Roberto Molina Barreto.
Their motion alleges that the judges committed legal prevarication, or breach of duty, when on May 20, 2013, they voted to suspend the genocide proceedings, overturning the guilty verdict placed on Rios Montt by the High Risk Tribunal “A” on May 10, 2013.
Under Guatemalan law, a judge has committed the crime of prevarication when their resolutions are contrary to the law or based on false information, with the guilty party susceptible to a sentence between two to six years in prison, according to CALDH.
Since the 2013 Constitutional Court decision, there have been several attempts to restart the genocide case against Ríos Montt, all of which have failed, leaving the case in limbo.
Most recently, Rios Montt was to stand trial, as announced in March, for his participation in the Dos Erres massacre.
The bloody massacre at Dos Erres occurred in December 1982 at the height of the country's 36-year civil war, in an area that had been designated as a "red zone," meaning it was deemed as a place populated with "guerrilla sympathizers."
The slaughter was part of Rios Montt's genocidal scorched-earth campaign against the country's Indigenous population.
The High Risk Tribunal “B,” which is now in charge of the case, has determined that because Ríos Montt suffers from dementia, he will be prosecuted in a closed-door proceeding. If found guilty, he will not have to serve the terms of his sentence.
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According to Juan Francisco Soto, Executive Director of CALDH, the genocide case reveals a dysfunctional legal system.
“Their objective was to delay the proceedings and perpetuate impunity,” he told IJ Monitor. “Our goal is to reclaim the victims’ truth, continue the demand for justice in the genocide case, and strengthen the rule of law in Guatemala.”
Rios Montt’s dictatorship arose during the country’s 36-year civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, and was waged between the socialist Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity rebel army and the Guatemalan military government, which was backed by the United States, Israel and apartheid South Africa.
The armed conflict became synonymous with the U.S. government’s support for atrocities in a brutal campaign to stave off left-wing and communist movements in Latin America and the rest of the Global South during the Cold War.
The former despot was also a “School of the Americas” graduate and an alleged CIA asset.
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