Quiet Guatemalan prosecutor takes on dictator, drug gangs [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Quiet Guatemalan prosecutor takes on dictator, drug gangs
By Mike McDonald | Reuters – 1 hour 28 minutes ago.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - For nearly 30 years, Efrain Rios Montt evaded trial for massacres carried out during his military rule in Guatemala's civil war - until a diminutive, soft-spoken woman entered his life.

Since Claudia Paz y Paz became Guatemala's attorney general 18 months ago, the former dictator's retirement has been disrupted by efforts to make him answer for the most brutal part of the bloodiest armed conflict in modern Latin America.

In January, at the behest of her office, a judge ordered Rios Montt be tried for genocide and crimes against humanity, but the case has been held up as his lawyers lodge appeals. His opponents fear the 85-year-old general may never take the witness stand if his legal team can continue to stall proceedings.

Last week, however, another probe led to a court setting a second trial for massacres the state perpetrated under Rios Montt's watch during 1982 and 1983.

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