Man charged in massacre of 251 villagers

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Man charged in massacre of 251 villagers
The Press-Enterprise
Spanish authorities have charged a former Moreno Valley karate instructor with genocide and war crimes in the 1982 massacre of 251 men, women and children in Guatemala.
Spanish National Court Judge Santiago Pedraz issued an arrest warrant Monday seeking the extradition of Jorge Orantes Sosa Jr., 52, to Madrid. Sosa is charged with genocide, torture, terrorism and extrajudicial killing in a village while part of an elite government special forces unit during the Guatemalan civil war.
Sosa had operated the World Union Budo Sosa-Kai in Moreno Valley for the past decade, before fleeing from U.S. authorities to Canada last year. He was arrested on U.S. indictment for immigration fraud in January while staying with family in Canada.
Department of Justice officials in Washington D.C. would not comment whether U.S. officials would seek to try Sosa first in federal court in Riverside or when he may face extradition proceedings to Madrid. He remains in a Canadian jail.
The martial arts studio is listed as the same address as Sosa's home off Frederick Street in Moreno Valley. A phone number in Moreno Valley was disconnected and a message left for an attorney in Calgary went unreturned.
Sosa lived in Canada, where he worked under his father as a karate instructor. He later moved to Moreno Valley, where he applied for and was granted dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship in 2008.
U.S. officials first began investigating Sosa when he applied for U.S. citizenship in San Bernardino and swore under oath he had no criminal history or belonged to a criminal organization. While investigating his citizenship application, Sosa was tied to allegations related to the Guatemalan massacre.
Sosa was among eight defendants charged in the massacre. Two other men were also charged in the U.S. for immigration fraud, but not related to the massacre itself.
Prosecutors with the Center for Justice and Accountability requested the arrest warrant and extradition on behalf of the Guatemalan victims. Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum, whose family was ordered killed by the Guatemalan government in 1982, along with other human rights advocates filed the first lawsuit in 1999, leading to charges against former head of state General Efrain Rios Montt and senior Guatemalan officials.
"The victims in the Guatemalan Genocide case have been working tirelessly for years to find and make sure that Sosa Orantes and many like him are prosecuted for the brutal crimes they committed," said Pamela Merchant, executive director for the CJA , a San Francisco-based human rights authority.
"Charging Sosa Orantes with genocide and securing his prosecution for the Dos Erres massacre is the beginning of the justice the victims want and deserve," Merchant said.
Sosa's ancestors are Guatemalan. Beyond that, it's unclear how he became part of that Central American nation's military.
Federal investigators found Sosa to be the leader of the Kaibiles in La Polvora, El Peten, Guatemala. Sosa led a team of 40 soldiers to the small village of Dos Erres, near Las Cruces, where the soldiers raped women and children, then systematically killed the villagers, according to the indictment.
During a mission Dec. 7, 1982 to avenge a guerrilla attack on a military convoy, the Guatemalan Military High Command ordered Sosa and his troops to surround the village to prevent the villagers from escaping. Each of the homes was searched for weapons and the women and children were separated from the men, according to court records.
Villagers were bludgeoned with sledge hammers and thrown into wells along with babies. Soldiers fired shotguns and threw fragmentation grenades down the wells. Women and girls were raped before they were killed, the indictment states.
The massacre occurred during the height of the country's civil war, which lasted between 1960 and 1996. According to a United Nations commission, the Guatemalan military slaughtered more than 200,000 indigenous Mayans.
Under the arrest warrant issued Monday, Sosa could face trial on the war crimes and receive up to 30 years in Spanish prison once extradited to Madrid.
The case is being tried in Spain, where that country's Constitutional Court ruled in 2005 that Spain would observe "universal jurisdiction" for crimes under the Geneva Convention, such as genocide, according to the CJA.
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