Former Guatemalan Despot Efrain Rios Montt Incompetent to Stand Trial: Doctors
Source: Agence France-Presse
Former Guatemalan Despot Efrain Rios Montt Incompetent to Stand Trial: Doctors
World | Agence France-Presse | Updated: July 08, 2015 02:34 IST
Guatemala City: Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, charged with genocide during a brief but particularly brutal period of the country's civil war, is incompetent to stand trial, doctors said Tuesday.
Rios Montt, 89, "is not in full use of his mental faculties, is not able to understand any of the charges against him, cannot understand the elements of a trial or judicial procedures and cannot contribute to his own defense," said a report by the Guatemalan Medical Examiner's Office.
The report was presented as evidence to a mid-level court to determine if he should be tried over the death of 201 farmers during his iron-fisted rule in the early 1980s.
But his lawyers say the report also affects a separate, much bigger case, one in which the aging ex-despot is charged with the genocide of Maya Indians.
Read more: http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/former-guatemalan-despot-efrain-rios-montt-incompetent-to-stand-trial-doctors-779211
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Efrain Rios Montt and his strong supporter, Ronald Reagan. [/center]
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)McKim
(2,412 posts)Well, the judge found a way to get around being shot for prosecuting Rios Montt. I have seen the bones of those massacred at the Center for Forensic Anthropology in Guatemala City. I have talked with survivor groups and their grandchildren. Many groups have participated in the struggle for Justice all over the world. This is an outrage.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)interestingly the future Iran-Contra players all preferred Lucas García and backed coups against the "reformer": Ríos was favored by the Pentagon and DoS "COIN clique" whose plan was "bomb them, shoot them at random to drive them into 'protected hamlets,' and then roll in the dentists and Army clowns to strengthen their love of the state"
Judi Lynn
(160,656 posts)Efrain Rios Montt stands to get away with the murder of 2000 indigenous Maya people
PUBLISHED 17:11 July 8, 2015 UPDATED 17:24 July 8, 2015
By NEOnline | IR
The former dictator of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, was proclaimed mentally unfit to stand trial on charges of genocide.
On Tuesday, the countrys forensic authority declared the 89-year-old man unable to defend himself on charges of organizing the systematic extermination of 2,000 indigenous Maya during a particularly brutal stretch of the countrys 36-year civil war, the National Forensic Science Institute determined.
Rios Montt is accused that during his 1982-83 rule he implemented a scorched-earth policy against native Central American nation in a conflict that claimed as many as 250,000 lives.
This decision does not oblige the court to drop the genocide case, but it is a strong argument for the defense team in a hearing scheduled for 23 July. Notably, Rios Montt was already found guilty of the genocide in May 2013, but the countrys constitutional court annulled the case on procedural grounds.
More:
http://www.neurope.eu/article/guatemalan-mass-murderer-evades-trial/