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 expressing that the facts cannot remain in impunity, for which the lawyers accused the court of being impartial.

Francisco Vivar,  lawyer for the plaintiffs, requested that the recusal be made known to all the parties at the moment, given that it is an Oral and Public Debate, however, the judges did not agree and indicated that they will resolve it in writing. Therefore, the trial was suspended that day.

In response, several Guatemalan human rights organizations stated in a statement that the defense’s action is a malicious recusal:

“The victims of the genocide have waited 42 years for justice to be done (…) and this attempted recusal is just another way to avoid the conclusion of this historic trial with a conviction.”

Tuesday, August 13, Hearing 64

The hearing began with the written presentation of the court’s resolution in which the judges declared that the recusal presented by the defense of Benedicto Lucas García was not accepted.

One of the defense attorneys indicated that the resolution had not reached her in written form, so she asked to postpone the hearing until she received the formal notification and expressed that she had other debates scheduled for this day. The judges decided to continue with the hearing.

The expert witness Bertoni presented the results of one of his reports, in which 80 victims were found in the former Xolusinay detachment. He stated that only 60 of them could be identified. As in previous reports, the pattern of murder of the victims follows being shot in the head, with some exceptions in which they were also shot in the thorax. The victims were disappeared by state forces between February and March 1982.

This update is based on court observation and information from Verdad y Justicia