(Spanish below) On February 6, 2025, an appeal hearing of the 2018 sentence of the Molina Theissen case was held. This sentence sentenced Benedicto Lucas García, Manuel Callejas y Callejas, and Hugo Zaldaña Rojas to 58 years in prison for crimes against humanity, forced disappearance and aggravated sexual violence, [...]
Includes: The Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) denounces the dismissal of the tribunal in the Maya Ixil genocide case against Manuel Benedicto Lucas García. They point to this derailment of the case as blatant impunity and will continue to fight for justice. Organizers from the Departmental Assembly of [...]
(Spanish below) On November, 28 The First Chamber of Appeals accepted an injuction filed by the defense of Manuel Benedicto Lucas García to disqualify the High Risk Crimes Court A, claiming that the Tribunal is unfit to continue the oral and public proceedings. This decision has derailed the trial [...]
On a press conference on November 21, 2024, representatives from AJR ( Association for Justice and Reconciliation) and ODHAG (Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala) demanded that the First Court of Appeals reject the defense's dishonest attempt to throw out the genocide case and instead, act according [...]
November 7th The defense of the accused, the General Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, sought to delay the trial by soliciting an expert witness from the National Institute of Forensic Sciences (INACIF) to confirm that 5.56 caliber ammunition was used exclusively by the Guatemalan military during the Internal Armed Conflict. [...]
[Español a continuación] As the Maya Ixil Genocide case against ex-general Manuel Benedicto Lucas García comes to a close, the Association for Justice and Reconciliation -AJR- and The Human Rights Office of the Archbishop of Guatemala -ODHAG- declare to the public, national and international audience: WE ARE APPROACHING A [...]
[Español abajo] Published October 31st, 2024 by CALDH (Center for Legal Action in Human Rights for its initials in Spanish) THERE WAS GENOCIDE IN GUATEMALA Two Courts of Justice have ruled that there was genocide in Guatemala. The commitment of this crime against humanity could not have occurred without [...]
November marks the close of the Maya Ixil genocide case against Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, Chief of the General Staff of the Guatemalan Army between 1981 and 1982. We invite you to show your solidarity with members of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) who brought the case [...]
Wednesday, September 18th, hearing 72 On this day the expert in forensic anthropology Donaldo Arnulfo Castillo Valdez was presented. He ratified 3 expert reports which he conducted when he worked with the Center of Forensic Analysis and Applied Sciences (CAFCA, for its Spanish acronym) and which correspond to the [...]
Monday, September 9, hearing 69 The expert witness Claudia Eugenia Rivera Fernandez appeared and ratified 4 expert reports. The first is related to the exhumation carried out in Acul, Nebaj, Quiché on April 20, 1998. In this exhumation, 23 people were recovered who, according to testimonies, were killed by [...]
September 2, 2024, Hearing 68 On Monday, September 2, the expert Guillermo Vázquez appeared at the Court via zoom call from the Guatemalan consulate in Mexico. His first expert report corresponds to the one carried out in the Xecax canton, where 34 skeletons were recovered, of which 31 were [...]
This week 9 witnesses of massacres and one witness of sexual violence testified in Santa Maria Nebaj against Lucas Garcia for the massacres and crimes committed in 1982. Outside the courthouse in Nebaj, a banner commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 2013 genocide sentence is seen, which was placed [...]
Monday, August 12, Hearing 63 The presiding judge informed those present in the courtroom that on Saturday, August 10, Lucas Garcia's defense filed a written recusal against the Tribunal. According to the defense lawyers, the tribunal allowed expert witness Bertoni to go beyond the limits of his testimony by [...]
Monday, August 5, 2024, hearing 59 The anthropologist Rodolfo Leyva was present to ratify several social anthropology expert reports in which testimonies were collected from survivors in order to identify their relatives. The expert explained that the interviews with the survivors are filed in the FAFG and are included [...]
Tuesday, July 30th, Hearing 56 “We lived with the fear that at any moment they could kill us, too.” Survivor of the Ixil genocide In today’s hearing, the Public Prosecutor’s Office presented two pieces of documentary evidence along with the audio recording of a witness’s advance testimony. The first [...]
COMUNICADO DE PRENSA 15 de agosto de 2024 PARA PUBLICACIÓN INMEDIATA Contacto: Michelle Liang, Acompañante Internacional, NISGUA internacionalista@nisgua.org | +502 4873 4422 Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala - El lunes 12 de agosto de 2024, las abogados defensoras del ex general Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, acusado de genocidio, desaparición forzada y [...]
August 15, 2024 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Michelle Liang, International Accompanier, NISGUA internacionalista@nisgua.org | +502 4873 4422 Guatemala City, Guatemala - On Monday August 12, 2024, the defense lawyers of ex-general Manuel Benedícto Lucas García, accused of genocide, forced disappearance and crimes against humanity of the Maya Ixil people, [...]
On Saturday, August 10, the defense of former general Benedicto Lucas García filed a legal action to recuse the court, since according to the lawyers the court allowed the Public Prosecutor's Office to overreach their interrogation of an expert witness on the topic of victim identification. Therefore, several human [...]
Monday, July 22, Hearing 52 This day the hearing continued with the testimony of the witness María Marcos. The witness pointed out that when the soldiers burned her house in Pexla, she was with three of her daughters, a baby, an 11 year old, and a 14 year old. [...]
Photo by NISGUA. Defense witnesses testify in the Ixil Genocide Trial. Tuesday, July 16. Weekly Update for July 15-18 Monday, July 15, hearing 47 On Monday the 15th, the lawyers of Manuel Benedicto Lucas García presented 2 witnesses on behalf of the defendant. At the request of the [...]
Members of the CRLN delegation and members of NISGUA leaving a visit to a witness in the genocide case against Lucas García, in the Ixil region. Credits: Juan V. Miembros de la delegación de CRLN y miembros de NISGUA saliendo de la visita a un testigo del caso por [...]
Photo by NISGUA. Jennifer Harbury sits before the court on July 16th, 2024. On July 16th, Jennifer Harbury, the widow of Efraín Bámaca Velásquez (also known as Comandante Everardo), was to declare for the first time in front of a Guatemalan court, more than three decades after her [...]
The photograph reads “Peritajes Genocidio Ixil. The expert in forensic anthropology, Danny Aroldo Guzmán, concluded today before the First Court of Criminal Sentence that is conducting the trial against former general Manuel Benedicto Lucas García, that 44th day of hearings, Guatemala July 8, 2024." Picture by FGER Monday, [...]
Tuesday July 2nd, Hearing 41 Expert witness Alejandro Valencia Villa was presented himself by videoconference to ratify his 2015 expert report, based on International Humanitarian Criminal Law. The expert witness has previously worked in Guatemala, in the cases of the Diario Militar, Molina Theissen and the Chichupac Massacre. One [...]
Tuesday June 25th, hearing 39 At the beginning of the hearing, the plaintiffs' attorney, Jovita Tzul, requested that the judges, due to the fact that the defense of Manuel Benedicto Lucas García was granted an injunction which left out the testimony of expert witness Benjamín Carleoni, analyze and rule [...]
Youth in Copal AA march towards the river with signs denouncing contamination of the earth and water. Photo by NISGUA internacionalistas. Jóvenes de Copal AA marchan hacia el río con carteles que denuncian la contaminación de la tierra y el agua. Fotografía por internacionalistas de NISGUA (Español [...]
Tuesday June 18th, Hearing 37 “I saw with my own eyes and felt with my own body all the pain that the army caused” Tiburcio Utuy (✝) On the 37th day of hearings, the Public Prosecutor's Office presented four previews of evidence from survivors, whose testimonies were [...]
Monday June 10th, 2024, Hearing 34 "Repression also reached the civilian population that the army considered sympathetic or collaborator to the guerrilla." Kate Doyle On Monday, attorney Peralta, defense of Benedicto Lucas Garcia, began her interrogation of expert witness Kate Doyle. The expert explained the legal steps involved in [...]
Monday May 27th, 2024 Dr. Elizabeth Oglesby, a United States researcher, presented her findings confirming forced displacement suffered by the Ixil people. Oglesby recounted her initial work in Guatemala during the 1980s in the Ixil region, which was interrupted by the murder of Myrna Mack, the head of the [...]
Monday May 20th, 2024. The first forensic anthropology expert Raúl Humberto Archila García, who worked at the FAFG (Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation) until 2013, was present to affirm 3 expert reports on various individual and collective graves. The second expert of the day, the historian Angel Romeo Valdez Estrada, [...]
Monday, May 13th, 2024 “Today the hearing was suspended due to a problem in the judicial branch network, which was defined as “unusual”. This made it difficult to connect the courtroom with the Military Medical Center, where the defendant, the retired general Manual Benedicto Lucas García, is being held. [...]
Hearings accompanied by AJR Rabinal region Monday May 6th, 2024 Diego Avilés Toma, Cajixay, San Juan Cotzal Witness Diego Avilés recounted that his village was burned by elements of the Guatemalan army on January 8, 1982. The witness heard shouts that the army was coming and he hid [...]
Monday April 29 Hearing attended by Ancestral Indigenous Authorities of the Ixil Region First witness: Petrona López de Paz, Estrella Polar. The witness lived in Estrella Polar on March 23rd of 1982, when soldiers arrived in the community carrying weapons at around 5pm and told them that there was [...]
(ESPAÑOL ABAJO) Twenty-five years since the publication of the military intelligence document known as the Dossier of Death (Dossier de la Muerte) or Military Diary, families, victims and survivors of State terror and the politics of forced disappearances; Claim the memory and struggle of our relatives, who were repressed [...]
John Sutton, presente! John Sutton, tireless community leader for peoples' liberation struggles, has left a void that is impossible to fill. His legacy, marked by his unwavering commitment to awareness and action for justice in Guatemala and beyond, will resonate throughout time. John was much more than an activist; [...]
This week, they placed screens in the courtoom that protect the identities of the women who were victims of sexual violence as they gave their testimony. With them in the courtroom were representatives of the Ancestral Ixil Indigenous, Maya Achi women, who are also survivors of sexual violence in [...]
The Ixil Genocide trial against Benedicto Lucas García continued this week, April 15-19. During the hearings, members of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) were present, as well as members of of the Ancestral Ixil Indigenous Authorities of Nebaj, and representatives from civil society and the international community. [...]
(ESPAÑOL ABAJO) Guatemala, April 22nd, 2024. The members of the National Platform of Organizations of Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict condemn the inhumane and despicable acts committed by the army against the Maya Ixil people during the dictatorship of Romeo Lucas Garcia (1978-1982). In particular, we repudiate the [...]
This week, the hearings were accompanied by members of the Association for Justice and Reconciliation (AJR) of the Kaqchikel region, Ancestral Indigenous Authorities of the Ixil region of Nebaj and various national and international civil society organizations. Monday, April 8th, 2024 On the third day of hearings [...]
