Slow progress in prosecuting accused Guatemalan war criminals

[Judi Lynn]

Source: GlobalPost

Slow progress in prosecuting accused Guatemalan war criminals
By Larry Kaplow — Special to GlobalPost
Published: July 11, 2010 07:09 ET in The Americas

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala — Guatemalan human rights activists and victims of a notorious 1982 massacre are looking to U.S. courts to prosecute some of the alleged perpetrators.

Former Guatemalan special forces soldier Gilberto Jordan pled guilty on Wednesday in a south Florida court to lying when he received U.S. citizenship in the 1990s. Jordan, an army cook who became a restaurant worker in Florida, is one of four suspected perpetrators known to have gone to the United States years ago, as first reported by GlobalPost. They are accused of participating in a massacre in the northern Guatemalan hamlet of Las Dos Erres where 251 men, women and children were killed.

Two others were arrested in the spring on immigration charges and a third is free in southern California, under investigation. They are all named among 17 defendants in warrants in a 16-year-old war crimes case in Guatemala. Officials there could request extradition though it's unclear whether the men would face any tougher penalties in their home country, where prosecution of war crimes has been rare.

Officials say Jordan denied having served in a foreign military or committing crimes on his citizenship application. U.S. authorities say that when they went to his Delray Beach home in May he confessed to killing civilians in Las Dos Erres, beginning when he threw a live baby into a well. Scheduled for sentencing Sept. 17, he could face up to 10 years in prison on the immigration charge.


Read more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/the-americas/100709/guatemala-las-dos-erres

[Judi Lynn]

1. Delray Beach man pleads guilty to lying about role in Guatemalan village massacre

Delray Beach man pleads guilty to lying about role in Guatemalan village massacre
By Alfonso Chardy, The Miami Herald
9:14 p.m. EDT, July 8, 2010

Gilberto Jordán, a former Guatemalan military commando, admitted in Fort Lauderdale federal court Wednesday that he lied in his U.S. citizenship application by concealing his participation in a massacre that left 251 men, women and children dead in 1982.

Minutes after Jordán, 54, of Delray Beach, pleaded guilty, U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch classified him as a danger to the community, revoked his $100,000 bond, told him the court intends to revoke his U.S. citizenship and warned that his plea may lead to his deportation to his homeland.

Then two U.S. Marshals took Jordán into custody, ordered him to remove his belt, frisked, handcuffed and escorted him out of the courtroom through a side door.

The dramatic scene in Courtroom A on the second floor of the Fort Lauderdale federal court building closed a chapter in one of the worst massacres in Guatemala's history: the killing of the 251 victims in December 1982 at the Guatemalan village of Dos Erres during the Central American country's long civil war.

During questioning by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents before his arrest, Jordán admitted that one of his first victims at Dos Erres was a baby. An ICE affidavit in the case said Jordán "readily admitted that he threw a baby into the well and participated in killing people at Dos Erres, as well as bringing them to the well where they were killed."

Judge Zloch, in blunt remarks, proceeded to note that Jordán "sounds like a mass murderer."

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-guatemalan-soldier-guilty-20100708,0,5642812.story

[iamtechus]

2. Slow progress in prosecuting US war criminals!! /nt