The former president of the Presidential General Staff (EMP), Darío Morales García, went to an audience room to listen to the charges against him for the death of Bishop Juan Gerardi, in April 1998. The Public Ministry (MP) charged him with the crimes of extrajudicial execution in the degree of complicity and false testimony.
Morales declared a Free presswhile in the jailets of the Torre de Courts, which on the morning of April 27, 1998, reached Crime scene against Gerardi, by order of one of his bosses.
The union, who was sergeant major of the Presidential General Staff (EMP), said that during the criminal process he will declare to clarify the facts.
The MP indicated, during the audience, that five witnesses claimed to have seen Morales García taking photographs on the crime scene.
“You were seen inside the parish house of the San Sebastian Catholic Church, taking photographs and making you pass by the National Civil Police,” the MP charged.
The thesis of the investigating entity details that Morales acted and collaborated consciously and voluntarily in the commission of the crime in which Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera died.
“–Morales – altering the crime scene, hiding evidence and hiding information rendered before a court, so that the other responsible or material authors of the event evaded their criminal responsibility,” said the Prosecutor’s Office.
Monsignor Gerardi was hitting the head on April 26, 1998, at about 10:30 p.m. According to Morales García, when the incident occurred, he was sleeping at the presidential house.
He added that, near midnight, his chief and officer of the EMM, Julio Manuel Meléndez Crispín, woke him up and ordered him to take a camera to go to photograph the crime scene where the religious had died.
“When I went to the crime scene, I was already … we only went to see. The officer – Julio – Meléndez Crispín was the one who woke me up. I was on duty at the presidential house,” he argued.
He commented that his function was not to take pictures, but he had to obey the order.
“I had the order of Meléndez Crispín and, when we arrived, a man was already inside that house. I don’t know who he was and I didn’t ask him if he had his identification, because that man took us out – from the scene -” he said.
Meléndez Crispín, along with other former EMP heads, was favored in October 2002 by the Fourth Appeals Room, when the investigation against him for the death of Monsignor Gerardi.
Meléndez was appointed infantry colonel of the Ministry of Defense and in 2022 he was the head of the Military Music Service.
Morales García fears for his life when he was sent to prison
While rubbing his hands and watched another 20 detainees in the jail of the Tower of Courts, Morales said he is afraid, but will declare the truth during the criminal process.
“I am afraid that something like the others happened to me, which today are killed by the same fact,” Morales said.
For the death of Monsignor Gerardi, the Captain Byron Limaa trained intelligence officer at the Kaibil Special Forces School; His father, the colonel Byron Disrael Lima Estrada; The army specialist, José Obdulio Villanueva and the priest Mario Orantes Nájera.
Byron Lima and Obdulio Villanueva They were killed in prison during riots. Villanueva was beheaded on February 12, 2003 in the preventive for men in zone 18, and Lima was killed in the Pavón Criminal Rehabilitation Farm on June 28, 2016.
Darío Morales during his service at the EMP
Morales said he worked for the state of Guatemala for 20 years, of which 16 lent them in the EMP, where he had several functions.
“It was security and had several functions; sometimes he was an assistant, driver and photographer. He had to obey what one indicated,” he said.
He added that he worked at the EMP until 2003, when he was dissolved by then President Alfonso Portillo.
“We were left without work as 50 people, but I think it was because they didn’t want us to work for the presidency,” he argued.
Morales García’s life in the United States
Morales said that at the end of 2003 he decided to move to the United States to be able to work and pay the studies and food of his five children.
“I had a visa. I arrived in California, USA, where I worked in the construction, gardening and restaurants area,” he said.
“I came with my son from a hospital on April 19, 2022, when a policeman stopped me.
While he was in a detention center, Morales learned that he had a current arrest warrant in Guatemala but did not know the details of the case with which he was linked.
After Donald Trump assumed the presidency and applied new immigration policies, his case did not advance and received a deportation order.
“When I came to Guatemala they told me I was stopped. I didn’t know the reason,” said Morales.