Efrain Rios Montt blev fredag kendt skyldig i folkemord og forbrydelser mod menneskeheden i den blodigste fase af det mellemamerikanske lands borgerkrig. Han skal afsone 50 års fængsel for den første forbrydelse og 30 år oveni for den anden.
Rios Montt was convicted of ordering the deaths of 1.771 people of the Ixil Maya ethnic group during his time in office in 1982 and 1983, BBC online reports Saturday.
Survivors described horrific abuses (overgreb) committed by the army against those suspected of aiding left-wing rebels.
The Guatemalan Peace Accords were signed in 1996 after a civil war that lastet 36 years and in which 200.000 people were killed.
In blisteringly critical language, Judge Jazmin Barrios said that as de facto president it was logical that Rios Montt knew of what was happening in the country, but did nothing to stop it.
Hunger, systematic rape and forced displacements were all used as tools of war against the Ixil people for whom merely being a member of the indigenous group was a “mortal offence” in the military government’s brutal pursuit of left-wing guerrillas.
Now the 86 year-old former general is facing the rest of his life in prison, though he is almost certain to appeal on the grounds of his age.
The retired general had denied the charges, saying he neither knew of nor ordered the massacres while in power.
It is the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide (folkedrab) by a court in his or her own country.
Other genocide convictions have been handed down by international courts.
