A verdict is expected in the next few hours in Guatemala’s historic genocide trial.
Former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt and his former military intelligence chief José Martin Rodríguez Sánchez are accused of orchestrating the genocide of 1,771 Maya Ixil during Ríos Montt’s 17-month rule in the early 1980s.
The trial has been marred by repeated legal challenges and disruptions from the defence, and was nearly derailed last month, when a lower court judge ruled on Apr. 18 to annul the proceedings dating back to Nov. 2011 – before charges were even laid against Ríos Montt.
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The case resumed on Apr. 30, after the country’s Constitutional Court told Judge Carol Patricia Flores she was only tasked with reintroducing defence evidence and wasn’t supposed to start the case from square one.
Read also: Guatemala’s genocide trial – a ‘tangled’ path to justice
Presiding judge Jazmín Barrios is expected to deliver her verdict today at 4:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. EDT).
During closing arguments on Thursday, Ríos Montt denied ordering the 256 massacres of the Maya Ixil, in the northwestern department of Quiché, between March 1982 and August 1983. The attacks were purportedly carried out to combat leftist guerrillas and their supporters.
Ríos Montt’s rule was considered the most violent era of Guatemala’s 36-year-civil war.
During that time, military forces and civil patrols carried out massacres in 626 villages across the country and, according to the Historical Clarification Commission of Guatemala, as many as 3,000 people a month were slaughtered or disappeared.
This is the first time any head of state from a country in the Americas has stood trial for genocide.
The prosecution is seeking a 75-year sentence, should the 86-year-old be convicted.
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