Former Guatemalan human rights attorney Orlando Salvador López, in a file picture Moises Castillo (AP)
The Guatemalan public prosecutor’s office this Thursday morning arrested former human rights prosecutor Orlando Salvador López, who led the charge of genocide against dictator Efraín Ríos Montt. Police officers and prosecutors broke into the home of López in Guatemala City, accusing him of abuse of office and “illegal acts” because the former officer was doing private work during his tenure. “He practiced the profession of lawyer and notary in the knowledge that this was incompatible with his work as an employee of the institution,” said the public prosecutor’s office.
López’s arrest was hailed by representatives of Guatemala’s extreme right, who have harshly criticized the former prosecutor’s work against those responsible for crimes against humanity during the armed conflict that bled the Central American country dry. “He was responsible for the illegal capture of our war veterans,” he wrote on Twitter. Ricardo Mendez RuizDirector of the Foundation Against Terrorism, a far-right organization that has shown great combativity in trials of anti-corruption judges and prosecutors.
#Raids
The Prosecutor’s Office for Internal Affairs in coordination with the #PNC conducts search, inspection, registration and seizure of evidence at a property in Zone 2 of Guatemala City.diligence in development. pic.twitter.com/hHOjKQast2
— Guatemalan MP (@MPguatemala) March 16, 2023
López’s arrest has raised alarm among human rights defenders, who see the act as a prosecution of officials who attended trials of soldiers accused of abusing civilians in the 1980s and 1990s. “His arrest is part of a pattern of persecution of prosecutors and judges who have investigated corruption and human rights abuses in Guatemala,” warned Juan Pappier, deputy Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
López’s work as a human rights prosecutor was fundamental to bringing to justice high-ranking military officers with documented involvement in systematic human rights abuses. He led the investigation and prosecution of dictator Efraín Ríos Montt, who faced an oral and public trial in 2013 after decades on the run from court. More than 100 survivors and families of the victims gave their testimonies during the trial. The dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison, 50 years 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 taking office.
“That we were talking about issues of genocide, crimes against humanity, mass murders that are crimes against humanity, and the activities that we have developed in Guatemala around this case of the genocide of José Efraín Ríos Montt obviously made us feel made the subject of criticism for branding us as faces of shame,” López criticized at a meeting of lawyers organized in Spain after the trial of the Guatemalan dictator. “Those who branded us as notorious were the same soldiers who we have prosecuted and who have received significant penalties,” said the former prosecutor on that occasion.
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