Four men convicted in killing of Guatemalan bishop

By Paul Jeffrey

Guatemala City (ENI) - In a landmark decision that promises to remake Guatemala’s war-torn political landscape, on June 8 a court found three military officers and a priest guilty in the 1998 slaying of a Roman Catholic bishop. The court also ordered government prosecutors to investigate others who may have been involved in the killing.

Retired Colonel Disrael Lima Estrada, Captain Byron Lima Oliva, and Sergeant Jose Villanueva each received 30-year sentences for the assassination of Juan Gerardi, the auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City. The prelate was a human rights champion who was beaten to death just two days after releasing a report blaming the military for most of the abuses committed during the country’s 36-year civil war, during which some 200,000 people died.

Father Mario Orantes, a priest who shared a parish residence with Gerardi, received a 20-year sentence for complicity in the murder.

The bishop’s housekeeper, Margarita Lopez, was acquitted of a charge that she helped destroy evidence of the killing.

“All of Guatemala is happy because of this significant step toward eliminating impunity,” the bishop of El Quiche, Julio Cabrera, told ENI. “And achieving justice in this case gives us hope that we can get justice for crimes committed against ordinary people. We only received justice in this case because the victim was a bishop. Now we need justice in the cases of the tens of thousands of victims who were poor.”

The journey to the verdict was a long and torturous one. During the three years since Gerardi was killed, six witnesses, a prosecutor, and a judge linked to the case all fled the country in fear of their lives. Threats flourished against those seeking to bring the case to trial. A judge’s home was bombed the night before the trial opened in March.

During the 46 days of court sessions, the three-judge panel heard more than 100 witnesses, listened to the reading of 80 documents, and watched some 60 hours of videos made during the investigation of the case. The judges also left the courtroom to examine the crime scene and a jail where Villanueva claimed he was incarcerated the night of the killing.

At the end, although the judges recognized that no one had proved who physically killed Gerardi, they nonetheless declared that the three convicted military officers were “co-authors” of the crime, involved in planning and carrying out the murder, as well as altering the crime scene afterward.

The exact charge of which the three military officers were convicted–“extrajudicial execution”–implies that the three acted as agents of the state in committing the crime. The judges essentially declared the bishop’s killing a political crime, carried out by a military which had long been threatened by Gerardi’s pastoral concern for truth-telling and justice.

The judges denied a request by the prosecutor to similarly convict Orantes, and instead declared him guilty of a lesser charge of murder. They ruled that Orantes “contributed to the planning and, in failing to denounce the deed, permitted the alteration of the crime scene, which converted him into an accomplice.”

In their written decision, which was read at 4:30 am to a courtroom packed by hundreds of people who had waited all night for the verdict, the judges described what had been the key elements in reaching their conclusions. Among the witnesses singled out by the judges was Ruben Chanax, who had been paid $40 a week by Lima Estrada to spy on Gerardi. Chanax returned from Mexico, where he is living under a witness protection program, to testify how he had helped Lima Oliva and Villanueva move the bishop’s body and clean blood off the floor leading into the parish residence.

Praise for the decision came from all over. Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo, acknowledging the case had become “a national shame,” declared, “Today, for the first time in our history, law and justice have been applied to a political crime.”

Human rights organizations joined the chorus of praise. “The trial’s outcome marks the end of an era in Guatemala,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of the Americas division of Human Rights Watch. “For the first time, a Guatemalan court has ruled that army officers cannot get away with murder.”

Attorneys for the four convicted men announced the would appeal the verdict. Julio Echeverria, the attorney for Lima Oliva, blamed “international pressure” for the court’s decision. “It’s not normal that so many ambassadors show up in a courtroom,” he said. “Their presence had a message.”

Among the diplomats who showed up in the courtroom while the judges were deliberating was U.S. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell. Determined to show her personal support for the judicial process, Bushnell ignored orders from the State Department in Washington that only a lower-level embassy official should appear at the trial, sources in Guatemala and Washington told ENI.

Guatemalan Attorney General Adolfo Gonzalez said there was “little chance” that the court’s decision could be overturned on appeal. “What was demonstrated is that everyone is equally subject to the laws of the country, without any exceptions,” Gonzalez said. “It’s no longer tabu to bring military officers to court.”

International observers, who have watched the trial closely, said they would continue to follow the appeal process, which could take up to two years. “It’s more crucial than ever to demand that the government of Guatemala guarantee the lives of the judges, prosecutors, attorneys and witnesses in this case as well as the lives of all those committed to seeking justice for the Guatemalan people,” said Barbara Bocek, a Guatemala specialist with Amnesty International-USA.

Besides ruling on the fate of the five people on trial, the judges went a step further and ordered prosecutors to investigate 13 others linked to the killing or the attempted coverup. The list includes seven military officials, four penitentiary guards, and two civilians.

One of those to be investigated is Rudy Pozuelos, former head of the Presidential Guard, the feared military unit to which Lima Oliva and Villanueva belonged. According to Luis Vargas Bocanegra, sub-director of the government’s semi-autonomous Human Rights Prosecutor, “It’s possible that once they start investigating high-ranking military officers like Pozuelos, they’re going to discover the participation of others, including that of the General Commander of the Army,” a reference to former President Alvaro Arzu.

Nery Rodenas, the director of the Human Rights Office of the Archdiocese of Guatemala, said the church–which was granted official status in the trial–would help investigate and prosecute additional participants. Rodenas recommended that the government increase police protection for prosecutors. “There’s more risk now for them and for us,” he said.

While the judges’ decision made it clear that the military officers’ involvement in the killing was motivated by revenge for Gerardi’s criticism in the past and in order to avoid the bishop’s support for legal action against officials in the future, they did not touch on what motivated Father Orantes’ involvement.

The priest’s conviction has left church leaders unclear of how to proceed. On May 29, the auxiliary bishop of Guatemala City, Mario Rios Montt, had announced that Orantes would have to face an ecclesiastical court following the conclusion of his criminal trial. Yet Bishop Rios said on June 8 that no decision would be made on the matter until the appeals process had run its course. He also said the final decision on Orantes’ future as a priest would be made by the archbishop. The current archbishop, Prospero Penados del Barrio, has submitted his resignation to the Vatican and a new archbishop should be appointed by the end of June, church sources told ENI. Penados was returning to Guatemala from Rome and was not available for comment.

According to Bishop Cabrera, “It’s logical that there will be sanctions against a priest convicted of killing someone, even more so if the victim was a bishop.”

Bishop Cabrera said Orantes’ involvement in the case had caused “deep pain” to the church in Guatemala. “They had worked together for many years, and Monsenor Gerardi had tried to help Father Orantes,” Cabrera said. “It’s still unimaginable to me that a priest could collaborate in the killing. I’m left with great questions about how this could have happened.”