Political Crimes and Abuse of Power
Mar 19, 2013 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., March 19, 2013 – The groundbreaking genocide trial of Efraнn Rнos Montt, retired army general and former dictator of Guatemala, opens today with the presentation of the prosecution's first witnesses. The trial will take place despite repeated efforts by defense lawyers to halt the proceedings with legal appeals and a bid for amnesty. On March 12, the Constitutional Court rejected the amnesty request once and for all, clearing the way for the trial to begin.
Mar 8, 2013 | Briefing Book
Related Links
Una justicia que trasciende las fronteras
Por Alejandra Dandan, March, 6 2013
STOLEN BABIES: Argentina Convicts Two Military Dictators
July 5, 2012
Kissinger Blocked Demarche on International Assassinations to Condor States
April 10, 2010
Southern Cone Rendition Program: Peru's Participation
February 22, 2008
RENDITION IN THE SOUTHERN CONE: OPERATION CONDOR DOCUMENTS REVEALED FROM PARAGUAYAN "ARCHIVE OF TERROR"
December 21, 2007
Dec 21, 2012 | Briefing Book
Colombian Army "Facilitated" Paramilitary Operation at Miraflores "From Beginning to End" "Big-Time Narco" Carranza one of the "Best Known" Paramilitaries in Colombia but "Content to Operate Behind the Scenes" Washington, DC, December 21, 2012 – An individual using the reported alias of Colombian billionaire Vнctor Carranza Niсo “freely admitted” that “he and men under his command” were “responsible for the October 1997 Miraflores massacre” and that the Colombian Army “had facilitated the operation ‘from beginning to end,’” according to a formerly-Secret cable from the U.S.
Jul 5, 2012 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., July 5, 2012 –An Argentine tribunal today convicted two former military leaders for their roles in the kidnapping and theft of dozens of babies of executed and disappeared political prisoners during the dictatorship. Drawing on critical evidence provided from the United States, the court sentenced General Rafael Videla to 50 years and General Reynaldo Bignone to 15 years in prison for crimes that epitomized the vicious human rights abuses during the military regime that governed Argentina between 1976 and 1983.
Apr 26, 2012 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2012 – The former Liberian president Charles Taylor today became the first head of state since Nuremberg convicted by an international court for crimes against humanity, for his role in the decade-long Sierra Leone civil war; and his human rights abuses in Liberia from 1990 to 2003 were likely even more systematic, according to declassified U.S. government documents posted today by the National Security Archive at www.nsarchive.org. The U.S.
Dec 16, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C. , December 16, 2011 - A Colombian army general acquitted today in one of the country's most infamous human rights cases "actively" collaborated with paramilitary death squads responsible for dozens of massacres, according to formerly secret U.S. records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive.
Nov 30, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington D.C., November 30, 2011 – Thirty-eight years after the military coup in Chile, a Chilean judge has formally indicted the former head of the U.S. Military Group, Captain Ray Davis, and a Chilean intelligence officer, Pedro Espinoza for the murders of two American citizens in September 1973. The judge, Jorge Zepeda, said he would ask the Chilean Supreme Court to authorize an extradition request for Davis as an "accessory" to the murders of Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi.
Nov 25, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington D.C., November 25, 2011 – President Ronald Reagan was briefed in advance about every weapons shipment in the Iran arms-for-hostages deals in 1985-86, and Vice President George H. W. Bush chaired a committee that recommended the mining of the harbors of Nicaragua in 1983, according to previously secret Independent Counsel assessments of "criminal liability" on the part of the two former leaders posted today by the National Security Archive.
Nov 22, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., November 22, 2011 - The bodies of two men whose disappearance in 1984 was recorded in the notorious Guatemalan "death squad diary" have been located on a former military base outside the capital and positively identified through DNA testing, according to the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, which announced its findings in a press conference this morning. The remains belong to Amancio Samuel Villatoro and Sergio Saъl Linares Morales, both captured by security forces in separate incidents and never seen by their families again.
Sep 29, 2011 | Briefing Book
Washington, D.C., September 29, 2011 - Twelve years after the assassination of beloved Colombian journalist and political satirist Jaime Garzуn, a newly-declassified State Department cable, published on the Web today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org), supports longstanding allegations that Colombian military officials ordered the killing. Written just days after the murder, the cable from the U.S.