Guatemalan former dictator dies with impunity
The 91-year-old general was considered one of the most bloodthirsty soldiers in Latin America 102. His greatest political achievement was to take his party to the Presidency of the Republic in the period between January 14, 2000 and the same date in 2004. The Guatemalan Constitution prohibits coup leaders to aspire to power. Get to know more from this figure.
The former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt, one of the most bloodthirsty soldiers in Latin America and who led with an iron fist the destinies of Guatemala between March 23, 1982 and August 8, 1983, has died this Sunday in the City of Guatemala, at 91 years old. According to what people close to Ríos Montt confirmed, he died early in the morning this Sunday due to cardiac arrest. His health had deteriorated in recent months. Already in July 2015 he was declared "mentally incapable" to face a new trial against him, which was subject to the annulment of the process in which he was sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and other crimes against humanity, in May of 2013. "(Ríos Montt) presents a deterioration that prevents him from adequately performing from the point of view of thought and judgment (...) He is not in full use of his mental faculties ..." says the medical report of the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (Inacif, dependent of the Office of the Prosecutor).
Tahúr of politics, the old soldier, who craved the destinies of Guatemala during the final stage of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century, died without knowing the prison, despite having been convicted in May 2013. He could not avoid, though, knowing himself condemned by history and having to endure, throughout the process, the testimonies of dozens of survivors of the conflict, who during the trial put before the eyes of the world the atrocities committed by the army during the civil war that bloodied Guatemala between 1960 and 1996, and reached its highest levels of savagery during the riosmonttista government. From his dungeon in a military barracks, where after his sentence he stayed two nights, Rios maneuvered with extreme skill so that the Constitutional, in an opinion without any legitimacy for reasons of competition, annul the sentence and order to repeat the trial. At present, and without the presence of Ríos, a high-impact court was once again aware of the case.
The satrap benefited from all the procedural guarantees proper to the rule of law, which he denied his victims. During his government, 15 people were shot after being sentenced by faceless judges in summary trials. The last five - three civilians and two low-ranking soldiers - were shot by guns on the eve of the visit of John Paul II, the first time in history that a pope visited Guatemala, which led to a scandal worldwide. Officially it was said that the executed had admitted the commission of the crimes that were imputed to them -integrating a band of assailants and rapists-, which their lawyers denied before the local press, indicating that they had been forced to accept guilt in the midst of savages tortures. I guess no one will miss him much.