A former member of an elite Guatemalan military force extradited from the United States last July was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison Monday for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre.
Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth former special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years or more for what became known as the “Dos Erres” massacre after the northern Guatemala hamlet where the killings occurred during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.
The sentence was handed down by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity.
Pimentel Rios, 54, is a former instructor at a Guatemalan training school for an elite military force known as the “kaibiles.”
Pimentel lived in Santa Ana, California, and worked in a sweater factory for years until he was detained by immigration authorities in May 2010. He was extradited to Guatemala the following year.
Guatemala's civil war claimed at least 200,000 lives before it ended in 1996. The country's U.S.-backed army was responsible for most of the deaths, according to the findings of a truth commission set up to investigate the bloodshed.
In December 1982, several dozen soldiers stormed the village of Dos Erres, searched homes for missing weapons and systematically killed men, women and children. Soldiers bludgeoned villagers with a sledgehammer, threw them down a well, and raped women and girls before killing them, according to court papers filed in a case brought by U.S. prosecutors against another former kaibil.
Guatemala opened an investigation into the killings in 1994 and unearthed 162 skeletons. Several years later, authorities issued arrest warrants for 17 kaibiles but the cases languished.
In August 2011, a Guatemalan court sentenced three other former special forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison each for the massacre, and sentenced a former army second lieutenant to 6,066 years. (AP)
<관련 한글 기사>
징역 6,060년 선고! 무슨 죄를 지었길래...
1982년 1백1명의 민간인 살해에 관여한 혐의로 전 직 과테말라 정예부대 요원이 12일(현지시간) 징역 6천60년을 선고받았다.
이 같은 형량을 선고받은 페드로 피멘텔 리오스는 작년 7월 미국에서 과테말라로 송환됐다.
그는 '도스 에레스'로 알려진 과테말라 북부의 한 마을에서 일어난 학살 사건에 가담한 혐의를 받고 있다. 이로써 이 사건으로 6천60년 이상의 징역형을 선고받은 전직 특수부대원은 5명으로 늘었다.
그러나 현행법상 유죄를 선고받은 수감자가 복역할 수 있는 최대 형량은 50년이 기 때문에 이번 선고는 상징적인 의미에 그칠 전망이다.
피멘텔 리오스는 현재 54세이며 '카이빌레스'로 알려진 과테말라 정예부대 훈련 학교의 교관이었다. (연합뉴스)
