Guatemalan special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years in prison

Now grey haired, Pimentel denied being present at the massacre, saying he left
the area in November 1982 to prepare enrollment papers for the School of the
Americas in Panama.

The ruling comes as Guatemala seeks to clean up atrocities from the bloody
1960-1996 internal conflict in which nearly a quarter of a million people
died or went missing.

A judge sentenced four soldiers to 6,060 years in prison each last August for
the Las Dos Erres Massacre.

Courts opened a trial in January against former dictator Efrain Rios Montt who
ruled the country for 17 months during the war’s bloodiest period from
1982-1983.

Montt, denied amnesty by a judge last month, faces charges of genocide and
crimes against humanity. He is accused of ordering killings of at least
1,700 innocent Maya indigenous people during a government crackdown on
leftist insurgents.

Montt appealed the amnesty decision to Guatemala’s Constitutional Court and is
awaiting a verdict.

His defense lawyers said that Montt, 85, did not control battlefield
operations and that commanders were responsible for making decisions in
their own posts.

Source: agencies

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