PBI-Guatemala accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm as former head of military intelligence granted house arrest in Military Diary Case

On November 28, PBI-Guatemala posted:

“PBI accompanies the Human Rights Law Firm at the hearing of review of alternative measures of Toribio Acevedo Ramirez in the #MilitaryDiaryCase. Preventive detention was revoked and house arrest was ordered with the ability to commute in the municipalities of Zacapa, Guatemala and San Lucas Sacatepequez.”

Prensa Latina also reported:

“The High Risk “A” judge, Claudette Domínguez, resolved in the Military Diary Case to grant house arrest to Toribio Acevedo, who was in pretrial detention and prosecuted for crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, murder and attempted murder.”

This past May, VOA reported: “A Guatemala judge [Magistrate Miguel Ángel Gálvez] 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.”

Gálvez left Guatemala on November 4 and resigned as a judge on November 16.

That article further explained: “In addition to the nine ex-police and military officers Gálvez ordered to stand trial, he called for prosecutors to find Toribio Acevedo Ramírez, a former head of military intelligence. Panamanian authorities arrested Acevedo Ramírez Tuesday [May 11] in Panama City’s airport.”

Con Criterio has also noted: “[Acevedo] was a member of the Presidential General Staff and there are investigations that link him to the attempted assassination of Colom Argueta [the Mayor of Guatemala City] in 1978. [In the Military Diary Case, Acevedo]is accused of enforced disappearance, murder and crimes against the duties of humanity, acts committed during the time of the internal armed conflict.”

The Military Diary is a document that lists the names of 195 people, including children, who were captured and forcibly disappeared between 1983 and 1985 during the dictatorship of Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores.

The National Security Archive notes: “Most – but not all – of the victims listed in the Death Squad Diary were politically organized, members of student movements, union leaders, writers, and other dissidents. Some were just children.”

We continue to follow these hearings.