70. Law Courts Education Society of British Columbia and CALDH project to train Guatemalan prosecutors in oral penal procedure and related issues. This is very interesting in that it is one of the first projects designed to help fiscales of the Ministerio Publico improve their performance in everything from crime scene and evidence management, to taking of evidence and examining witnesses in court, to construction and pleading of criminal cases in the oral penal modality. It has now finished its first phase and is looking for funding for a further phase.

71. Until the end of 2000, Canada provided a varying number of police observers (drawn from the RCMP, provincial forces and municipal police) to MINUGUA. They did quite a range of things, but basically supported the human rights verification function by doing liaison with the PNC.

72. As yet unrealized ideas: There is interest in various quarters (RCMP, University of Saskatchewan, Law Courts Education Society, the Canadian Department of Justice) in sharing with Guatemalans Canadian experience with aboriginal policing and alternative aboriginal justice systems and in community policing, but this has not come to anything yet.

June 8, 2001 11:00 am, Ministerio Publico, Oficina por los Delitos Contra los Operadoros en la Systema de Justicia, Director Leopoldo Liu

73. This office was created by the Government in February of 2001. The earliest of the seven most recent assassinations of lawyers was in September of the previous year (2000). Leopoldo Liu brought each of the files into his office for inspection and he described the facts briefly of each case. I’ll provide a very brief synopsis of each below:

74. Oscar Allan Bosque Morales - Liu believes that his death could have been an accident in that he was reported to be drunk and walking on a roof at the time. Police were called to take care of him, and his death was caused by a fall.

75. Ernesto Arturo Punera Cabrerra – Punera’s death is believed to be a crime of passion in that he was shot in the ribs by his former lover. The office is still trying to gather evidence in this case. 

76. Edwin Arreaga Espana – Arreaga was killed on November 18, 2000. Some eleven (11) days earlier on November 7, 2000 his car had been stolen and on November 28, 2000 three (3) people were apprehended crossing the border in that car.  While there is no proof linking the three (3) people in the car to the assassination, Liu indicated that it is probable that these people were involved because the licence plate on the car pertained to Arreaga’s former lover and the crime is also assumed to be a crime of passion. A car following the stolen car was also registered to Arreaga’s lover.  The three male suspects who were apprehended are still incarcerated and the investigation is continuing with regard to the female suspect.

77.  I should note that Liu felt that these first three files are not related to the function of the office in that these people were not killed because of their work as lawyers, but rather because of personal circumstances.

78. Napoleon Humberta Villela Javier – Villela and his assistant were killed February 6, 2001 in Chichemulla with AK47s.  They had been involved in defending suspected narcotics traffickers and Liu indicated that the file was very dangerous to investigate.

79. Gabriel Alberto Coronado Menos – Coronado had been killed in Zone 9 of Guatemala City on December 27, 2000.  He had been riding in a car with tinted windows and had been shot very precisely by someone on a motorcycle.  Liu indicated that this was also a very dangerous case to investigate and that they had a number of hypotheses with regard to who had committed the act. Apparently Coronado did many offshore contracts and had a number of very prestigious clients although he was not linked to any particular type of law that would have put him in danger.

80. Francisco Javier Mazaregos – He was killed January 24, 2001 in Guatepecque. Mazaregos defended a group of narcotics traffickers known as the twelve apostles.  His assistant has since fled to Mexico.  Mazaregos was shot twenty-two (22) times.  There was also a letter, which was directed to his family, which said that two million (2,000,000) quetzales (approximately USD$ 250,000) had been paid for “the job he didn’t do”.  This was an anonymous letter to his wife.  Liu explained that in the case of lawyers defending narcotics traffickers that often the practice involved asking a client for a large sum of money with which the lawyer would then attempt to bribe both the judges and prosecution in a given case.  If the lawyer runs into difficulty and a conviction ensues, the client may come after the lawyer seeking revenge.  Liu was careful to note that this was not necessarily what had happened in these cases but it was one theory among others. 

81. Ofelia Paniagua Corzantes – Paniagua was both a lawyer and a professor at the Law School at the University of San Carlos.  She was killed on October 31, 2000 in her house at 6:00 am.  Paniagua was involved in defending family rights in a variety of cases.  Liu says that they have many hypotheses as to who actually killed her.  Liu says that they think that it is someone who Paniagua knew because she let the assailant in using her intercom. Paniagua was well known in Guatemalan legal circles.

82. Judge Alvero Hugo Martinez Pèrez – the judge who was lynched in Senahù. Liu recounted the grizzly series of events, which led to the lynching of Judge Martinez.  The Judge was killed on March 12, 2001 by an angry mob that was unhappy with a decision that the judge had made.  The mob first destroyed the Police Station in Senahù and then went on to bombard the small house that the judge was staying in with large boulders, which ultimately killed the Judge.  The throwing of the boulders started at 8 pm and apparently the Judge died at 6 am the following morning after a night of being bombarded by huge rocks. Liu said that there were four police that were stationed in Senahù none of whom showed up to assist the Judge. There was no radio or no phone in the house.

83. Apparently three (3) days prior to the killing a truck had been driving in the area with a loose rope, which had accidentally caught a little girl who was walking close to the truck, and unfortunately the little girl had been dragged and died as a result.  The Judge did not find the driver criminally at fault and held that it was an accident.  The lynching was a reaction to this decision.  The mob also burned the truck that the driver had been driving and the owner of the truck has fled the area. 

84. There have been three (3) people apprehended for the crime but only because they were hospitalized after the judge was forced to fire upon the mob. Liu said that if and when a trial happens as a result of the lynching, the trial must be set in Senahù, which will be a very dangerous proposition. At this point there are no police authorities in Senahù.  Another fifteen (15) warrants have been issued for other people alleged to have been part of the mob, but there are no police who want to go to Senahu to execute the warrants and apprehend the suspects. 

85. Liu mentioned that he himself has been threatened. In 1998 Liu was working on a case which involved investigating Government corruption.  Unknown people contacted his daughter and told his daughter that he would be killed if he continued his investigation.

86. Liu agreed that Judges do not have enough protection in Guatemala.  He noted that his office was only responsible for investigation and not protection. He indicated that there was no question that the Supreme Court needs its own security force separate from the police.

87. He said that his office had received fifty-two (52) complaints of threats against judges and lawyers since February.  He noted that investigating a threat was incredibly difficult.  Many threats are made from public payphones using prepaid phone cards.  These are very difficult to trace. 

88. Liu is alone in the office and he has no staff of his own. He directs investigations and he basically begs the time of other Fiscales to spend time working on his files. The Fiscales who work on these files all have other homicide files of their own.  Liu also said that it had been incredibly difficult getting the co-operation of the families of the victims.  He said there has only been one case where the family has done something to help his office to investigate, otherwise the families have been very afraid of getting involved in the investigation or participating in any way for fear of reprisal. 

89. Liu gave me his contact numbers and his fax number. I indicated that Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada would like to maintain an ongoing link to his office and make queries into the progress of the investigations as they continued. It was obvious to me that one man alone in the face of the number of investigations that the office had received could make but a very small impact. If the Government is serious about targeting judges and lawyers as a group, the resources, which are currently available, are woefully inadequate. 

June 8, 2001 3:00 pm., Centro para la Accion Legal en Derechos Humanos (CALDH), Paul Seils, Director del Departamento de Justicia y Reconciliacion

90. I had first met Paul when he gave a speech at the Law Courts Inn here in Vancouver a number of months ago, co-sponsored by the Canadian Bar Association International Resource Network Committee and the Law Courts Education Society.  The Law Courts Education Society and Rick Craig have been working with CALDH in establishing a training program for Prosecutors.  Paul had spoken about the efforts of CALDH to bring Rios Montt, the former General and Dictator of Guatemala to justice for genocidal policies of mass extermination, which had been perpetrated, on the indigenous population of several Guatemalan villages.