Former Guatemala Dictator to Stand Trial Again for Genocide

The former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt will once again stand trial Monday for the genocide of indigenous peoples in the north of the country during his regime in the 1980s.

The 88-year-old retired general will be tried by the Constitutional Court, the highest in Guatemala. An 80-year prison sentence was handed down to Rios Montt in May 2013, but was subsequently annulled by another court, purportedly due to processional errors.

The ex-dictator's former intelligence chief, Jose Maurico Rodriguez, will also stand trial.

“It has now been demonstrated that genocide was committed in Guatemala and we hope for another sentence,” Hector Reyes, the lawyer for the survivors and families of the victims of the massacres that took place in the Ixil region, attributed to the Rios Montt, told the French news agency AFP.

The prosecution accuses the former dictator of orchestrating a policy of exterminating the indigenous people, who identified with the left-wing guerrillas during the armed conflict.

Referrring to the time between March 1982 and August 1983, Reyes said, “Only in the period of Rios Montt 1,771 indigenous people from the maya-ixil ethnic group were killed, without even counting other ethnic Mayan groups.”

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Last week, Rios Montt's lawyers requested that judge Janeth Valdez, who is the president of the Tribunal and in charge of the genocide process, be removed from the proceedings due to her “biased opinion.”

Reyes accused the defense team of delaying tactics.

“This is definitely a strategy to hold up the start of the process, we know that this case always will be permeated by some juridical actions that are going to be planted to delay it,” he said.

Rios Montt has also asked to excuse himself from the proceedings, due to back and heart problems.