Ex-Guatemalan Soldier Gets 10 Years in US Prison

[Judi Lynn]

Ex-Guatemalan Soldier Gets 10 Years in US Prison
Ex-Guatemalan soldier linked to 1982 massacre in homeland sentenced to 10 years in US prison
The Associated Press
By CURT ANDERSON AP Legal Affairs Writer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. September 16, 2010 (AP)

http://a.abcnews.com.nyud.net:8090/images/US/10a2d6d55dfa47dd9e934f73f46c929e_mn.jpg

A former Guatemalan soldier who admitted participating in a 1982 massacre in his homeland has been sentenced to 10 years in U.S. prison for making false statements on citizenship forms.

A federal judge in Florida imposed the maximum sentence Thursday on 54-year-old Gilberto Jordan. Jordan pleaded guilty to lying on U.S. citizenship forms about his military service and role in the massacre in that Central American country.

Court documents show Jordan was part of an elite Guatemalan unit that targeted anti-government guerrillas. The massacre took place in December 1982 in the town of Dos Erres, where at least 162 people including women and infants were killed.

More:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11655732



Esperanza Arreaga, 62, lost two small
daughters and 14 others in her
extended family in the massacre at Las
Dos Erres. (Larry Kaplow/GlobalPost)

Slow progress in prosecuting accused Guatemalan war criminals
A suspect has pleaded guilty to immigration violations — but will he face more serious charges?
By Larry Kaplow — Special to GlobalPost
Published: July 11, 2010 07:09 ET in The Americas

~snip~
According to witnesses, including two former soldiers in hiding who have aided the Guatemalan prosecution, children were thrown alive into the dry well, many women and girls were raped, beaten to death with a hammer and thrown in also, and then men were tortured and shot.

Archeologists in 1995 found the tangled remains of more than 150 people in the well as well as remnants of more bodies scattered on the ground in two areas nearby.

The massacre was part of the Guatemalan military’s scorched earth campaign in a civil war that killed more than 200,000 people, the vast majority at the hands of the army.

More:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/the-americas/100709/guatemala-las-dos-erres