Pedro Pimentel Rios, Former Member Of Elite Guatemalan Military Force, Gets 6,060-Year Sentence For 1982 Massacre

Pedro Pimentel Rios, a former member of an elite Guatemalan military force known as the "kaibiles," attends his trial at a court in Guatemala City, on March 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

GUATEMALA CITY — A former member of an elite Guatemalan military force extradited from the United States last July was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison Monday for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre.

Pedro Pimentel Rios was the fifth former special forces soldier sentenced to 6,060 years or more for what became known as the "Dos Erres" massacre after the northern Guatemala hamlet where the killings occurred during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

The sentence was handed down by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a convict can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity.

Pimentel Rios, 54, is a former instructor at a Guatemalan training school for an elite military force known as the "kaibiles."

Pimentel lived in Santa Ana, California, and worked in a sweater factory for years until he was detained by immigration authorities in May 2010. He was extradited to Guatemala the following year.

Guatemala's civil war claimed at least 200,000 lives before it ended in 1996. The country's U.S.-backed army was responsible for most of the deaths, according to the findings of a truth commission set up to investigate the bloodshed.

In December 1982, several dozen soldiers stormed the village of Dos Erres, searched homes for missing weapons and systematically killed men, women and children. Soldiers bludgeoned villagers with a sledgehammer, threw them down a well, and raped women and girls before killing them, according to court papers filed in a case brought by U.S. prosecutors against another former kaibil.

Guatemala opened an investigation into the killings in 1994 and unearthed 162 skeletons. Several years later, authorities issued arrest warrants for 17 kaibiles but the cases languished.

In August 2011, a Guatemalan court sentenced three other former special forces soldiers to 6,060 years in prison each for the massacre, and sentenced a former army second lieutenant to 6,066 years.

Comments

[Parker95]

05:20 AM on 03/15/2012

Perhaps he should have been sent to prison for eternity? As Woody Allen said "Eternity is a very long time, especially near the end"

[maciasal]

01:18 AM on 03/14/2012

U.S. diplomacy should go on trial also, after all these murderers had the backing ($$$$) of American govt.

[jrp1947]

01:16 AM on 03/14/2012

Hopefully some members or friends of the families are inside prison and can take care of business for the murdered family members. he might find himself facing another court inside prison.

[TopNewsReview]

12:23 AM on 03/14/2012

Very lucky man. He'll walk right out of prison when he's only 104 years old. He can pull 50 years in prison standing on his head...

[johnpoppajohn]

12:13 AM on 03/14/2012

F'n animal

[alexunlv]

12:55 PM on 03/14/2012

U.S. Trained.

[Travis Barton]

12:08 AM on 03/14/2012

Such sentences should be given to all murderers, or worse! Not including the people who have been horribly abused and killed in self defense, or killed when someone broke an entering into their own home, etc.

[ravennightfall31]

11:57 PM on 03/13/2012

6,060 years? Are these judges making a jury joke? Even if he could live that long, why waste all that money. Stop sending people to prison with these insipidly long sentences and just put them to sleep! The death penalty should be used for those who kill, letting them have a paid living for the rest of their life is a waste of what money in left in this bankrupt world!

[greekfish101]

11:44 PM on 03/13/2012

Nil inultum remanebit

[bloomd]

01:37 AM on 03/14/2012

It's Greekto me

[greekfish101]

10:50 AM on 03/14/2012

Technically it's Latin. Meaning "Nothing unavenged remains"

[huckjames1]

11:44 PM on 03/13/2012

No death penalty for Pedro. They should have deported him to Texas.

[IBFreeer]

11:36 PM on 03/13/2012

Most latin countries dont have a death penalty because of the catholic influence..But he wont do 50 yrs, he'll be dead anyhow b4 then..

[handiestguy]

11:19 PM on 03/13/2012

That's what happens when you let people ILLEGALLY immigrate...That's why we have LEGAL process to enter this country....There should be NO exceptions....NO amnesty (that's how we got in this mess, thanks to the Reagan / Bush amnesty of 1987.....Rewarding bad behavior ALWAYS is followed by more bad behavior.
Why in the world do we still make Canadians and Europeans go through the LEGAL process to come here, but we allow THUGS, MURDERERS, and other assorted criminals just waltz across the southern border and then march on the streets, demanding to be made citizens?
We have become a nation of pansies...

[MN1]

11:51 PM on 03/13/2012

Oh because there are absolutely no criminals in Canada or Europe, So come on down!!!! Your ignorance and your stupid mentality IS WHAT WE NEED LESS OF. Yes, we do need a reform but for absolutely everyone not only the ones that come from the southern borders idiot !!!!!!

[DeceptionIsReality]

12:14 AM on 03/14/2012

They probably let him flee here. We allow that for those that do are dirty work.

[soylentblue]

12:52 AM on 03/14/2012

No question about that. It's interesting that he was only caught and extradited during an Obama administration.

[rikatnite]

11:19 PM on 03/13/2012

Now theres CHEVEZ...ORTEGA...CASTRO...and the Russian Navy being invited foe "war games" in our hemisphere. Reagan was right.

[soylentblue]

12:57 AM on 03/14/2012

Gee, I wonder why we can't win them over?
Look, stupid, it was Reagan who paid for the weapons and training for Rios and plenty of others like him.

[tfcrow]

11:11 PM on 03/13/2012

A good lawyer will get the sentence cut in half.

[Vince Giordano]

11:49 PM on 03/13/2012

I like that....perhaps we should have those judges here...I,ve seen to many people in my state literally get away with murder....

[tcmmedical]

11:55 PM on 03/13/2012

cute, lol :)

[f1nesse101]

11:07 PM on 03/13/2012

The story of the village of Dos Erres is eeriely familiar to what is happening in Afghanistan. The US gives the guy the weaponry to commit the crimes, provides him with safe harbor and then ultimately returns him home to face charges. Is this not what the US did to Manuel Noriega? Now I understand why the US government can turn a blind eye to the human atrocities taking place in Iran and Syria. Why "liberating" Iraq bascially accomplished one thing and that was to execute Saddam Hussein, oh and yes throw the country into a recession that nearly brought us to the brink of no return.

[wesdfs]

11:00 PM on 03/13/2012

why doesn't this suprise me that it was us backed and why did we support such actions-------sounds like they need to arrest the americans that supported these massacres

[DeceptionIsReality]

12:09 AM on 03/14/2012

Cold War Era politics was a brutal and dirty thing.