Attorneys for the six victims say ‘historic’ court docket choice recognises the plight of survivors who demanded justice for many years.
A prime Guatemalan court docket has sentenced three former paramilitaries to 40 years every in jail after they had been discovered responsible of raping six Indigenous ladies between 1981 and 1983, one of many bloodiest intervals of the Central American nation’s civil warfare.
The conviction and sentencing on Friday mark one other vital step in the direction of attaining justice for the Maya Achi Indigenous ladies, who had been sexually abused by pro-government armed teams, throughout a interval of maximum bloodshed between the army and left-wing rebels that left as many as 200,000 lifeless or lacking.
Former Civil Self-Defence Patrol members Pedro Sanchez, Simeon Enriquez and Felix Tum had been discovered responsible of crimes towards humanity for sexually assaulting six members of the Maya Achi group, Decide Maria Eugenia Castellanos mentioned.
“The ladies recognised the perpetrators, they recognised the locations the place the occasions occurred. They had been victims of crimes towards humanity,” she mentioned, praising the ladies’s bravery in coming to court docket to testify on repeated events.
“They’re crimes of solitude that stigmatise the girl. It’s not simple to talk of them,” the decide mentioned.
Three former paramilitaries, from left, Simeon Enriquez, Pedro Sanchez and Felix Tum, depart the court docket after their conviction and sentencing on Friday (Johan Ordonez/AFP)
Indigenous lawyer Haydee Valey, who represented the ladies, mentioned the sentence was “historic” as a result of it lastly recognised the battle of civil warfare survivors who had demanded justice for many years.
A number of Maya Achi ladies within the courtroom applauded on the finish of the trial, the place some wearing conventional apparel and others listened to the decision by means of an interpreter.
One of many victims, a 62-year-old lady, informed the AFP information company she was “very comfortable” with the decision.
Pedro Sanchez, one of many three males convicted, informed the court docket earlier than the sentencing, “I’m harmless of what they’re accusing me of.”
However Decide Marling Mayela Gonzalez Arrivillaga, one other member of the all-women, three-panel court docket, mentioned there was little question in regards to the ladies’s testimony towards the suspects.
The convictions had been second within the Maya Achi ladies’s case towards former army personnel and paramilitaries. The primary trial, which occurred in January 2022, noticed 5 former paramilitaries sentenced to 30 years in jail.
Advocacy group Impunity Watch mentioned the case “highlights how the Guatemalan military used sexual violence as a weapon of warfare towards Indigenous ladies” through the civil battle.
In 2016, a Guatemalan court docket sentenced two former army officers for holding 15 ladies from the Q’eqchi group, who’re additionally of Maya origin, as intercourse slaves. Each officers had been sentenced to a mixed 360 years in jail.
