On May 5, Darío Morales García was sent to prison to be prosecuted for extrajudicial execution in degree of complicity and false testimony, in connection with the case for the extrajudicial execution of Bishop Juan Gerardi Conera, which occurred on the night of April 26, 1998. At that time, the Human Rights Office of the Archbishopric (ODHA) suspected the involvement of the presidential staff (EMP Logistics to the President) because several witnesses observed Morales García, who was a specialist at the EMP, and two other officers in the crime scene.
The incident occurred in the parish house of the San Sebastián Church (Sixth Avenue and 2nd Street, Zone 1), of which Gerardi was pastor. Until a year later, in 1999, the then manager of the Presidency, Mariano Rayo, admitted that it was he who telephoned the EMP, at approximately 2.30 in the morning following the crime to verify what happened in the place. On April 26, 27 years after the events, Morales García, 61, was captured for being among the members of the EM that – according to the ODHA and the accusation of the MP – arrived at the crime scene to alter it.
The ex -specialist was arrested after he arrived in the deported country. The authorities revealed that he had fled to the United States to evade his capture. Captain Byron Lima Oliva – also of the EMP – were sentenced in 2001 in 2001, his retired father and colonel Byron Lima Estrada, Sergeant Obdulio Villanueva and El Vicepároco de San Sebastián, Mario Orantes.
MP and Forensic doctors determined that Gerardi died from internal bleeding due to multiple blows to the head. The body was in a crime scene with blood footprints made with a tennis sole and only with the left foot. The crime occurred two days after the bishop presented the Guatemala report: never again, of the Historical Memory Recovery Project (Rehi), which associated State forces-military, police, civil self-defense-to 92% of human rights violations during the internal armed conflict (1960-1996).
In Audience, in 1999, Rayo reported that about 2 in the morning after the crime he called him by telephone Raquel Zelaya – then, in charge of the Secretariat of Peace (Sepaz) -, to request help at the request of Helen Mack – who directed the MACK Foundation – because there were only two police officers in the parish house and asked for the presence of high -level authorities. Rayo explained that he called the EMP, because he was closer to the place – two blocks away – than the General Directorate of the National Civil Police (PNC), 11 blocks or the police station 11, seven blocks.
Those involved
Rayo supposedly did not know, when he telephoned the EMP, that three members of that entity had already been seen in the parish house before that call made: Morales García, his boss, Major Francisco Escobar Blas and Major Andrés Villagrán Alfaro. Escobar and Villagrán declared, in a contradictory way, and in the trial of the case in 2001, who were the person who received the call of Rayo in the EMP offices – which was impossible, because they were also in the crime scene at that time.
The PNC had only cordoned off the area around the body. Then, after 1 in the morning, when the Firefighters arrived, journalists, human rights activists, authorities and curious. The PNC extended the area cordoned off later, when the crime scene was already contaminated. In that period, ODHA members observed the EMP staff in the place.
“For having been condemned members of the EM – Sergeant Villanueva, and Captain Lima Oliva – in this case, and that Morales García was a member of that team, he is considered a crime participant, and is accused of as an accomplice,” said Free press Nery Rodenas, director of the ODHA. Rodenas does not know if the Prosecutor’s Office has more evidence against Morales García than his testimony, and those of Mack, Ronalth Ochaeta and Fernando Penados – director and investigator of the ODHA in 1998, respectively – and Ángel Conte, then director of the PNC, who observed the defendant inside the parish house taking photographs.
“He is considered a crime participant, and he is accused as an accomplice.”
Several media published that, when a witness asked specialist Morales García what he was doing at the crime scene, he replied that he was Scadaespi of Conte. When this reached the ears of the director of the PNC, he denied it, and ordered the members of the EM to withdraw. Rodenas, later, said he recognized Morales García because they had seen him in 1997 taking photographs at the trial against Villanueva for the Pedro Sas Bompich case. This was a dairy to which the sergeant shot and killed in 1996 for allegedly attacking the then President Álvaro Arzú – as they condemned him, for using unnecessary force.
A researcher, linked to the Gerardi case in 1998 and who requested not to be identified, explained that one day after the crime against the bishop he met Morales García and Captain Lima Oliva in La Morgue, where Gerardi’s body was, and that the first tried to photograph him, until a forensic doctor ordered him to retire.
The accusations
They also accused Morales García of false testimony because, in the trial in 2001, he declared that he arrived at the parish house the night of the crime, but that he did not enter, when several witnesses did see him inside. He had a arrest warrant since 2014. Although, according to articles 107 to 109 of the Criminal Code, the crime of false testimony – which implies sentences of six months to three years in prison – has already prescribed, the ex -specialist will also be prosecuted for that crime. If he is judged and convicted of extrajudicial execution, as an accomplice, the sentence – according to the Criminal Code – is determined by the penalty for the crime of which he was complicit – who contemplates a minimum of 25 years in jail –
The priest Orantes – chapter in 1999 – was also sentenced to 20 years for extrajudicial execution in the degree of complicity – although it came out in 2013 for redemption of sentences. Los Lima – capped in 2000 – and Villanueva – in 2001 – were sentenced to 30 years, although the sentences of the first two later were also modified to 20 years by extrajudicial execution in degree of complicity. Villanueva was killed in jail in 2003. Lima Estrada left in 2012 – although he had been interned for four years at the Military Medical Center – and died in 2019.
Lima Oliva was also killed in jail, in 2016, when he was also prosecuted for other crimes outside the Gerardi case. All the convicted maintained their innocence and the MP never explained how the link between prayers and the military worked, if all were accomplices, but the final convictions were held. The first prosecutor of the case, Otto Ardón, said in 1998 that there was no evidence that it was a political crime. Prosecutor Leopoldo Zeissig, who brought the case to trial, was convinced that the motive of the crime was the Rehi report. Together with Morales García, Major Escobar Blas was also pointed out by crime against the bishop, but was never arrested, and died in a plane crash in 2020.
According to Rodenas, the largest Villagrán has an open process since 2001, although there is no more public information about it. This week, with the hearing last May 5, the judicial process against Morales García began.