Saturday, May 08, 2010
A special unit of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service has tracked down four immigrants accused of participating in one of the bloodiest episodes of Guatemala’s civil war. Agents working in ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit located the men in California, Texas and Florida. The four were part of the Guatemalan military’s kaibil unit that brutally slaughtered 251 men, women and children in the village of Los Dos Erres over a three-day period in December 1982.
But it was unclear whether the suspects will be prosecuted in a U.S. court for the massacre or for lesser violations of immigration law.
On May 5, ICE agents arrested Gilberto Jordán of Delray Beach, Florida.
The special ICE unit has reportedly arrested more than 180 people wanted for human rights-related crimes since the agency took over in 2003 from its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Unit works to both prevent war criminals from entering the United States and to track down those who have sought refuge in the country.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
U.S. Agents Arrest Palm Beach Man Suspected in '82 Guatemala Massacre (by Alfonso Chardy, Miami Herald)
US Rounds Up Guatemalans Accused of War Crimes (by Matt McAllester, Global Post)
Ramiro Remembers: Key Witness in Guatemala Massacre (by Matt McAllester, Global Post)
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