Thursday, December 1, 2011

Guatemalan Presses Canada to Prosecute Alleged War Criminal

A Guatemalan immigrant whose entire family was murdered in a notorious massacre said Monday he wants Canada to prosecute an alleged war criminal and not let the man be extradited to the U.S.

Ramiro Cristales said Monday he witnessed Guatemalan soldiers kill nearly everyone in the village of Dos Erres during the country's bloody civil war when he was 5 years old.

Jose Sosa, 53, who holds both Canadian and Guatemalan citizenship, was arrested in January in Canada on U.S. charges of lying on his citizenship application about his ties to the Guatemalan military.

In Guatemala, Sosa was a member of a special military unit called the "Kaibiles" and was the commanding officer of a unit assigned to find and arrest guerrillas who had stolen military weapons, according to U.S. court documents.

The government claims in the indictment that on Dec. 7, 1982, he and several dozen soldiers stormed the village of Dos Erres, near Las Cruces, and systematically killed the men, women and children. The unit is accused of slaughtering villagers with sledgehammers and throwing people into a well. Sosa denies the allegations.

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