Judge in Guatemala threatened after order

A Guatemalan judge who last week ordered nine former police and military officers to stand trial for alleged crimes during that country’s civil war, said Wednesday that death threats against him had increased since announcing his decision.

“They send me messages, they call me on the phone, there’s vehicles following; all of that is happening,” Magistrate Miguel Angel Galvez said.

Galvez is no stranger to high-profile cases. He once ordered former dictator Efrain Rios Montt to be tried. “Before they had threatened me, but now they even come to hearings to photograph me,” he said.

Last week’s case stemmed from a document from Guatemala’s civil war recovered in 1999 known as the “Military Diary.”

In the document, military officials logged forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and the torture of 183 people.