Ex-Guatemalan dictator was accused of genocide
GUATEMALA CITY — Former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who seized power in a 1982 coup and presided over one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala’s civil war in which soldiers waged a scorched-earth campaign to root out Marxist guerrillas, died Sunday, his lawyers said.
Lawyer Jaime Hernandez said the family told him the 91-year-old died of a heart attack.
A U.N. truth commission determined that some 245,000 people were killed or disappeared during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, with the vast majority of the killings attributed to the army or progovernment paramilitary groups. Tens of thousands of those deaths came during Rios Montt’s 17month rule.
Rios Montt was convicted in 2013 of genocide and crimes against humanity for the massacre of 1,771 indigenous Ixil Mayans by security forces under his command.
But the ruling was swiftly set aside and a new trial ordered, dismaying human rights activists and victims who long sought to see him punished for atrocities.
In October, his trial on genocide charges resumed behind closed doors after being suspended for more than a year while his lawyers argued that he was too senile to participate, with no memory and unable to make decisions.
Guatemala’s Congress said that because of the political offices he held, Rios Montt was entitled to lie in state. But the family decided to hold a private burial ceremony Sunday.
An ex-general known for inspiring fear and giving speeches at a near-shout, Rios Montt was later a longtime member of congress and one of the most influential figures in Guatemalan politics for more than three decades.
Rios Montt was married to Maria Teresa Sosa and had three children: Adolfo, who participated in his father’s coup and was killed in 1984 in a rebel downing of a helicopter; Zury, who was elected to Guatemala’s Congress; and Enrique, who served as defense minister.