Guatemala genocide

On Oct. 25, comedian Jimmy Morales will face off in a runoff presidential election against populist former first lady Sandra Torres. Some voters see Morales as a candidate who might be a change from Guatemala’s status quo corruption. Others are concerned about his military supporters.

A Guatemalan court ruled Tuesday that ex-dictator Efraín Ríos Montt must face retrial for genocide during the country's civil war despite his dementia. The trial will take place behind closed doors.

Guatemalan former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt was supposed to undergo a psychiatric evaluation at a notorious public hospital to determine whether he's fit to stand trial for genocide. But his defense team succeeded in having him evaluated at an upscale private hospital instead.

Despite an official forensic report saying former dictator Efrían Ríos Montt is unfit to stand trial for genocide, Judge María Eugenia Castellanos told reporters Thursday that the aging former general would testify via videoconference from his home in Guatemala City, where he's under house arrest.

GUATEMALA CITY – Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú on Friday lamented the impunity that surrounds the massacre of indigenous people by the military in the north of the country 37 years ago during the civil war.

GUATEMALA CITY – A court in Guatemala on Monday sentenced a former police chief to 90 years for a massacre at the Spanish Embassy in 1980 where a group of indigenous protesters, peasants and university students were holed up inside.

In Guatemala, the rule of law hangs in the balance following the ouster of human rights champion Claudia Paz y Paz from the post of attorney general. A right-leaning former Supreme Court justice, Thelma Esperanza Aldana Hernández, was named as Paz y Paz’s replacement, and may be about to roll back recent gains against corruption and human rights violations, analysts say.