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Despite Evidence of Massacres, Former Guatemalan Dictator Proclaims Innocence at Genocide Trial

2,027 views · Published 10 May 2013 · 19:15 · Indexed 8 November 2026

Channel: Democracy Now! · 2013 · News & Politics

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http://www.democracynow.org - A verdict is expected as early as today in the historic trial against U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, the first head of state in the Americas to stand trial for genocide. He is charged with overseeing the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala's Mayan region after he seized power in 1982. On Thursday, Ríos Montt testified for the first time during the trial. "I declare myself innocent," Ríos Montt said. "I never had the intention or the purpose to destroy any national ethnic group." During the trial, nearly 100 prosecution witnesses described massacres, torture and rape committed by state forces. "If Ríos Montt is convicted, the next question becomes: What about [current Guatemalan President Otto] Pérez Molina and what about the U.S. sponsors who were providing the weapons, the money, the bombs, the bullets and the political support for the crimes for which Ríos Montt may today be convicted of genocide?" asks investigative journalist Allan Nairn from Guatemala City. In the 1980s, Nairn broke many stories about massacres in Guatemala and the U.S. backing of the dictatorship.

See all Democracy Now! coverage of the Ríos Montt trial at
http://www.democracynow.org/topics/guatemala.

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