By Franz Smets –
GUATEMALA CITY — The former leader of an elite team of the Guatemalan military has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in a mass murder 30 years ago.
Pedro Pimentel, the former leader of the elite Kaibiles Corps, was found guilty of participating in the 1982 murder of 201 villagers in the north of the Central American country.
Four other Kaibiles members were given the same 6,060-year sentence in August.
The massacre was perpetrated in the village of Las Dos Erres, in the northern Guatemalan province of Peten, during a civil war that tore apart the Central American country during 1960-96, during the rule of dictator Efrain Rios Montt.
In the incident, 40 Kaibiles entered Las Dos Erres searching for weapons and were commanded to shoot the villagers.
During the Guatemalan Civil War, which claimed at least 200,000 lives, the military regime fought leftist rebels and committed many human rights violations, particularly against indigenous peoples.
