The ex-prosecutor who brought the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to trial was arrested in Guatemala

Former Guatemalan human rights prosecutor Orlando Salvador López, in a file image. Moises Castillo (AP)

The Guatemalan Prosecutor's Office arrested former human rights prosecutor Orlando Salvador López this Thursday morning, who led the genocide accusation against the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.

Police officers and the Public Ministry entered the house of López, located in Guatemala City, whom they accuse of abuse of authority and for "carrying out illegal acts", since the former official carried out private work while holding public office.

"He exercised the profession of lawyer and notary knowing that he was incompatible with his work as an employee of the institution," the Prosecutor's Office has indicated.

The arrest of López has been celebrated by representatives of the Guatemalan extreme right, who have harshly criticized the work of the former prosecutor against those responsible for crimes against humanity during the armed conflict that bled the Central American country.

"He was responsible for the illegal capture of our war veterans," Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, director of the Foundation against Terrorism, an extreme right-wing organization that has shown great belligerence in trials against anti-corruption judges and prosecutors, wrote on Twitter. .

#Raids

The Internal Affairs Prosecutor's Office in coordination with the #PNC develops a search, inspection, registration and seizure of evidence, in a property located in zone 2 of Guatemala City.

Diligence in development.

pic.twitter.com/hHOjKQast2

— Guatemalan MP (@MPguatemala) March 16, 2023

López's arrest has set off alerts among human rights defenders, who see in this act a persecution against public officials who participated in legal proceedings against soldiers accused of abuses against civilian populations in the 1980s and 1990s.

"His arrest is part of a pattern of persecution against prosecutors and judges who investigated corruption and human rights violations in Guatemala," warned Juan Pappier, deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch.

López's work as a human rights prosecutor was fundamental in bringing to trial high-ranking military officers, who were found to have participated in systematic human rights violations.

He led the investigations and the accusation against the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, who after evading Justice for decades, was subjected to an oral and public trial in 2013. More than 100 survivors and relatives of the victims gave their testimonies during the process.

The dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison, 50 for genocide and 30 years for crimes against humanity.

It is estimated that more than 10,000 people were killed in the few months of his presidency, because the general was overthrown in a coup 17 months after he took office.

“For talking about issues of genocide, crimes against humanity, mass murders, which are crimes against humanity, and the activity that we have developed in Guatemala around this case of genocide against José Efraín Ríos Montt has evidently made us the object of criticism, to the point that they have branded us as the faces of infamy," López denounced at a meeting of jurists organized in Spain after the trial against the Guatemalan dictator.

"Those who have branded us as infamous have been the same soldiers whom we have persecuted and against whom significant sentences have been obtained," the former prosecutor said on that occasion.

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