PBI-Guatemala accompanies hearing in which former Defense Minister indicted on charges of enforced disappearance

Image from Canal Antigua.

Prensa Libre reports: “Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez linked to criminal proceedings on Friday [June 25] to former Defense Minister Marco Antonio González Taracena, for the crime of enforced disappearance.”

“In addition to the crimes of enforced disappearance, González Taracena is accused of crimes against the duties of humanity, murder and attempted murder.”

“The hearing was held in the Diario Militar case based on the ‘Dossier of Death’, a document that recorded how 183 people were kidnapped, tortured and executed by members of the security forces between 1983 and 1985, according to the Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office.”

The article adds: “The former minister is the seventh indicted by Judge Galvez in the case.”

PBI-Guatemala was present at the four days of this hearing.

It also accompanied the seven days of hearings for the first six defendants in the Military Journal Case. On June 9, all six defendants were indicted for crimes against humanity, and five of them were indicted for forced disappearance. They all also stand accused of murder, attempted murder or both, for the killings.

Human Rights Law Firm

Edgar Perez has been acting as the representative of the Association of Detained and Disappeared Relatives (Famdegua) in these hearings.

PBI-Guatemala began to accompany BDH lawyer Édgar Pérez Archila in August 2010 due to several security incidents he had faced in relation to the high-profile judicial processes he was working on. At the end of 2013, PBI-Guatemala extended the accompaniment to the other lawyers of the BDH who work in high-profile trials to fight against impunity and in defending criminalized human rights defenders.