Rios Montt to stand trial

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According to The New York Times:

A Guatemalan judge on Monday ordered Efraín Rios Montt, the former dictator, and his intelligence chief to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the massacres of villagers in remote highlands three decades ago.

Rios Montt, 86, is the first former president to be charged with genocide by a Latin American court. He has been under house arrest since January 2012 when a judge ruled there was enough evidence for him to stand trial. Appeals from his lawyers delayed the case, the Times reported. The latest ruling opens the trial.

He was president of Guatemala for 17 months during the years 1982 and 1983, years that saw some of the worst violence of Guatemala’s civil war.

About 200,000 people, mostly Mayan villagers, were killed in the war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996, and many are still missing.

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