Byron Lima Oliva, Bishop’s Killer, Dies in Attack at Guatemala Prison
Byron Lima Oliva, Bishop’s Killer, Dies in Attack at Guatemala Prison
By ELISABETH MALKIN and NIC WIRTZ JULY 18, 2016
MEXICO CITY — Convicted of killing a bishop who had cataloged human rights crimes during Guatemala’s long civil war, Byron Lima Oliva, an army captain, went to prison and, prosecutors said, built a powerful criminal operation from behind bars.
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Mr. Rivas said the attack had been planned by another inmate, Marvin Montiel Marín, known as El Taquero, who is serving an 826-year sentence for a 2008 attack on a bus that killed 16 people. Mr. Montiel and Mr. Lima led rival groups in the prison that clashed over drug sales, prisoner transfers and internal discipline, Mr. Rivas said.
Mr. Lima, 46, was serving a 20-year sentence for the 1998 murder of Bishop Juan José Gerardi, who was bludgeoned in his quarters just two days after presenting a voluminous human rights report on atrocities in the civil war.
Mr. Lima’s life in the military and behind bars — where he made many enemies — offers a “key illustration” of how clandestine structures inside Guatemala’s military “have been able to morph into criminal groups that have used their connections to gain power and economic benefit, either licitly or illicitly,” said Adriana Beltrán, an expert on the country’s military networks who is a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/world/americas/guatemala-byron-lima-oliva-killed.html?_r=0
