Plaintiffs in the historic trial of Guatemala’s former military dictator could learn today whether the case will resume, nearly two weeks after it was suspended.
Efraín Ríos Montt and his former military intelligence chief, José Martin Rodríguez Sánchez, are facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
They’re accused of ordering a brutal campaign of torture, rape and murder against indigenous Maya Ixil people, in the country’s northwest highlands, between 1982 and 1983.
According to the newspaper Prensa Libre, trial judge Jazmín Barrios has summoned lawyers, the defendants and complainants — representing 1,771 Maya Ixil killed in massacres — to return to the court at 8:30 a.m. local time (10:30 a.m. ET)
The case has been suspended since April 19, after the Constitutional Court — the country’s highest court — ordered defence evidence, excluded in the pre-trial phase, to be reincorporated.
The court asked pre-trial judge Carol Patricia Flores to reintroduce the evidence. But on April 18, she ruled to annul the trial, saying the case should not have gone forward without said evidence included.
Barrios said Flores did not have the authority to annul the proceedings, and suspended the trial until appeals on her decision, from human rights groups and the attorney general, were heard by the Constitutional Court.
On Monday, Flores handed the file — including 27 pieces of evidence she has reincorporated — back to Barrios, who summoned the parties back to court.
Human rights advocate Hector Reyes, with the Legal Action Center for Human Rights, believes Barrios will issue a resolution on whether the proceedings can pick up where they left off, the Prensa Libre reports.
The trial began on March 19 and was nearing its conclusion when it was halted.
Read: Guatemala’s genocide — a ‘tangled path to justice’
This is the first genocide trial to take place in Guatemala.
Tens of thousands of Mayan people were killed or disappeared during Ríos Montt rule, which marked the most violent period of the country’s 36-year civil war.
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