Spain: Guatemalan official absolved in prisoner’s executions
Posted Mar 15, 2017 10:57 am.
Last Updated Mar 15, 2017 11:40 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
MADRID – Former Guatemalan interior minister Carlos Vielmann has been absolved by a Spanish court in a high-profile case of summary executions of inmates a decade ago.
Vielmann, who has Spanish nationality, was facing up to 40 years in jail for the death of ten prisoners — three who fled a high-security jail in 2005, and seven others at another prison where security forces stormed to quell a mutiny a year later.
Two judges ruled that there was not enough evidence to determine Vielmann’s responsibility in the deaths. A third judge disagreed, according to the sentence.
The outcome is a blow to rights organizations that had seen in the trial at Spain’s National Court an opportunity to fight what they see as impunity by the rich in Guatemala.