Guatemalan massacre suspect extradited to US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Sep 21, 10:58 PM EDT
Guatemalan massacre suspect extradited to US

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A former Guatemalan soldier accused of being involved in a brutal 1982 massacre during that country's civil war has been extradited to California where he faces immigration fraud charges.

Federal authorities say Jose Sosa Orantes was brought to the U.S. Friday from Canada, where he had been in custody on U.S. charges of lying about his role in Guatemala's war when he applied for American citizenship in 2008.

Authorities allege Sosa was a member of a Guatemalan military unit known as the "kaibiles" and helped command a unit assigned to track down suspected guerrillas who had stolen military weapons.

Sosa and other soldiers stormed a village in Guatemala in 1982 and allegedly killed men, women and children during the search.





Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GUATEMALAN_MASSACRE_EXTRADITION?SECTION=HOME&SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Judi Lynn]

1. Immigration Charges For Accused Commando In Dos Erres Massacre

Immigration Charges For Accused Commando In Dos Erres Massacre
by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, Sept. 21, 2012, 6:53 p.m.

A former Guatemalan Army lieutenant was extradited Friday from Canada to stand trial in Southern California on federal charges related to the massacre of 250 people in a Guatemalan village in 1982, a case that has resulted in landmark human rights prosecutions in Guatemala and the United States.

U.S. federal officers took custody of Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes in Calgary Friday morning and were en route to Los Angeles, U.S. officials said. Sosa, 54, is the highest-ranking officer to have been arrested on charges alleging direct involvement in the massacre by a 20-man unit of elite commandos in the northern Guatemalan farming hamlet of Dos Erres.

~snip~

Sosa, a karate instructor who holds both U.S. and Canadian citizenship, fled his home in the Los Angeles area in mid-2010 as agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) closed in on him. He went to Mexico and then to Lethbridge in western Canada, where he has family, and was arrested in January of last year, according to U.S. and Canadian court documents. Last month, a Canadian appeals court ended his legal fight to avoid extradition to the United States.

~snip~

In Dos Erres, Sosa allegedly oversaw the slaughter of men, women and children who were dumped in a well during a day-long frenzy of torture, rape and pillage, according to U.S. and Guatemalan court documents. He allegedly fired his rifle and threw a grenade into a pile of living and dead victims in the well, according to the testimony in Guatemalan courts of two former soldiers who are now protected witnesses.

More:
http://www.propublica.org/article/immigration-charges-for-accused-commando-in-dos-erres-massacre

[Judi Lynn]

2. Article on one of the two young boys who were carried away by soldiers

after the village was slaughtered.

Finding Oscar: Massacre, Memory and Justice in Guatemala
by Sebastian Rotella, ProPublica, and Ana Arana, Fundación MEPI May 25, 2012, 6:59 a.m.

~snip~
Oscar's green eyes scanned the screen. The email had arrived. He took a breath and clicked.

"You don't know me," it began.

Prosecutor Sara Romero's Letter to Oscar

The prosecutor said she was investigating a savage episode of the war, a case that had deeply affected her. In 1982, a squad of army commandos had stormed the village of Dos Erres and slaughtered more than 250 men, women and children.

Two small boys who survived were taken away by the commandos. Twenty-nine years later, 15 years after she had started hunting the killers, the prosecutor had reached an inescapable conclusion: Oscar was one of the boys who had been abducted.

"I know that you were much loved and well treated by the family in which you grew up," the prosecutor wrote. "I hope you have the maturity to absorb everything I am telling you."

More:
http://www.propublica.org/article/finding-oscar-massacre-memory-and-justice-in-guatemala

[NBachers]

3. Oh yeah- the Reagan holocaust in Central America