Witness at ex-dictator's trial links Guatemalan president to war crimes

By Mike McDonald

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - A former member of Guatemala's armed forces implicated President Otto Perez in civil war atrocities as he testified on Thursday at the genocide trial of ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt.

Hugo Reyes, who was stationed as an army engineer in a violent region of Guatemala under Rios Montt's 1982-1983 rule, said Perez commanded soldiers who burned down homes and shot and killed civilians during the civil war, which pitted leftist insurgents against a series of right-wing governments.

Perez, a retired army general who was elected president in 2011, was also known as major Tito Arias during the civil war and has previously denied involvement in war crimes.

Taking the stand, Reyes said he witnessed the killing of farmers near the village of Nebaj in northwestern Guatemala by troops under the command of Perez and another officer.

"The soldiers under the orders of Major Tito Arias, known as Otto Perez Molina, Francisco Marin, and the officers they were in charge of, and the commander of the company of engineers, coordinated the burning (of homes) and pulling people out so they could execute them," Reyes told the court.

Before Perez took office in 2012, Reuters asked him about testimony linking him to war crimes during the 1960-1996 war which claimed some 200,000 lives. Perez said the allegations were "completely false."

As president, Perez is protected by amnesty granted to public officials and cannot be subpoenaed.

Rios Montt, who left Congress last year, was ordered to stand trial in January when a judge found sufficient evidence linking him to the killing of more than 1,700 indigenous people in a counterinsurgency plan carried out under his command.

Prosecutors allege Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson against leftist rebels and targeted indigenous people in a "scorched earth" offensive that killed at least 1,771 members of the Mayan Ixil group.

Rios Montt, 86, has yet to take the stand in the trial, the first in which a country has prosecuted a former head of state for genocide and crimes against humanity.

(Editing by Dave Graham and Mohammad Zargham)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/witness-ex-dictators-trial-links-guatemalan-president-war-005338947.html

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