Spain Issues Arrest Warrants For 2 Ex-Guatemalan Dictators
Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter Madrid, Spain (AHN) - A Spanish judge issues international warrants for the arrest of two former Guatemalan dictators on charges of genocide. Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, and Gen. Oscar Humberto Meijia Victores along with six other men were charged with genocide, torture, terrorism and illegal detention. Guatemalan Nobel Peace-Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu filed a case in Spanish courts in 1999 accusing the men of genocide, torture and murder. Thirty-six years of civil war in Guatemala left 200,000 people dead before peace accords in 1996. Human rights groups accuse Rios Montt and Meijia of some of the worst atrocities of the war. National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz also named senior military officials in the warrants for involvement in atrocities. The whereabouts of some of the men is unknown. Pedraz has been investigating the killings of eight Spanish priests, and the takeover of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City in 1980. Thirty-five people died in that incident. Defense lawyers say the generals cannot be extradited because they were granted amnesty from political crimes during the civil war.
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