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The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Guatemalan judge finds six people guilty over deaths of 41 girls in 2017 fire
A Guatemalan judge has found six people guilty over the deaths of 41 girls in a raging 2017 fire at a state shelter for vulnerable youths that had a history of abuse. The sentencing is a step towards closure in one of the most horrific and deadly events in Guatemalan history. The tragedy drew international attention and highlighted pervasive abuse in the government's shelter system. The six sentenced on Tuesday – two former police officers and four former child protection officials – were found guilty of homicide, mistreatment of minors, breach of duties and abuse of authority. All pleaded not guilty. Judge Ingrid Cifuentes also ordered the investigation of former president Jimmy Morales for his role in ordering police to work at a facility where minors who had not committed crimes were held. Former social welfare secretary Carlos Rodas was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Earlier, Rodas told those gathered in the courtroom, including relatives of the victims, that he had not caused 'any harm to their daughters and the survivors'. Also among those convicted was ex-police officer Lucinda Marroquín, who held the key to the room where the girls were locked up and didn't open it when the fire started. She was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The judge said that through phone records, investigators were able to establish that at the time of the fire Marroquín was talking on her phone. The judge said a witness had testified that when told about the fire, Marroquín responded with profanity and said 'let them burn.' A former government prosecutor assigned to the protection of children was acquitted. The fire occurred on 8 March 2017, at the Virgin de la Asunción Safe Home outside Guatemala City, when 56 girls and teenagers were padlocked in a classroom allegedly for bad behavior. About 700 children – nobody knew exactly how many – lived in a home with a maximum capacity for 500. The majority had committed no crime. They were sent there by the courts for various reasons: they had run away, they were abused, they were migrants. The night before the fire, a group of girls had escaped. Hours later, the police returned them to the home. They were locked in a room that had no access to a bathroom and guarded by police. They were given foam mattresses to sleep on. After hours of demanding to be let out, one girl lit the fire. After spending hours locked inside, one of the girls lit a match to a mattress, thinking it might force police to let them out. Smoke and flames quickly filled the room, but despite cries for help, police refused to open the doors for nine minutes, witnesses said. Forty-one girls and teenagers died, and 15 more survived with serious burns. Cifuentes said that the fire was the culmination of a series of abuses, some of which had been reported to authorities but not acted on. She said autopsies confirmed the presence of drugs in some of the girls that supported their complaints that they were given sleeping pills that were among the reasons they had tried to escape the facility.
The Independent
a day ago
- The Independent
A legal fight is playing out around a Mexican migrant activist accused of human trafficking
A legal battle is playing out in Mexico over a well-known immigration activist and lawyer who was arrested earlier this month for alleged human trafficking and then ordered released by a judge in a case that underscored the conflicted stands on protecting migrants among Mexican officials. On Tuesday, Mexico's Attorney General's Office announced it will appeal the decision from the previous day to release Luis García Villagrán, who has helped organize migrant caravans that travel north from southern Mexico. When García Villagrán was released from detention on Monday, Judge Jonathan Izquierdo in Tapachula, a city in the state of Chiapas on Mexico's border with Guatemala, said authorities did not have enough evidence to prosecute him for human trafficking. 'I had never seen anything like it,' Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said during the president's news briefing Tuesday. The judge ignored a multitude of presented evidence and claiming that because 'he was dedicated to protecting migrant groups, he was releasing" the suspect. Gertz Manero added that his office would appeal but did not elaborate. After his release, García Villagrán told reporters the 'judge ordered my release because he said that we do not belong to organized crime" but rather to the activist group Centro de Dignificación Humana AC, dedicated to protecting the rights of migrants and recognized by the Ministry of the Interior. The activist-lawyer, who often accompanies migrant caravans, claimed that his arrest amounted to persecution by Mexican federal authorities for his activism. Such caravans have been criticized by authorities, and are regularly blocked by law enforcement, but have been used as a mechanism for migrants to travel safely through an area that has largely been considered the most dangerous stretch of the journey to the United States. President Claudia Sheinbaum and her predecessor President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have both emphasized the need to protect migrants, but under pressure from the United States have deployed immigration agents and the National Guard to try to keep migrants from reaching the U.S. border. There have long been accusations that smugglers take advantage of the caravans to move people north. When he was arrested last week, García Villagrán was helping organize a new caravan of up to 300 people that was to leave Tapachula. The march began its walk toward central Mexico and has so far advanced only a few miles (kilometers). Authorities say García Villagrán had been wanted for years and that his arrest followed a series of investigations that identified a network of human traffickers using various migrant support organizations as a 'front' for 'human trafficking and drug distribution' in Mexico. García Villagrán was identified as the 'person in charge of obtaining false documentation" for the passage of migrants through Mexico, in addition to operating as 'one of the main promoters of migrant caravans' and having an outstanding arrest warrant. His arrest even drew comments from Sheinbaum who said during her daily news briefing on Wednesday that he was 'not an activist' but was tied to trafficking people — and 'that is the crime.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Guatemalan judge finds six people guilty over deaths of 41 girls in 2017 fire
A Guatemalan judge has found six people guilty over the deaths of 41 girls in a raging 2017 fire at a state shelter for vulnerable youths that had a history of abuse. The sentencing is a step towards closure in one of the most horrific and deadly events in Guatemalan history. The tragedy drew international attention and highlighted pervasive abuse in the government's shelter system. The six sentenced on Tuesday – two former police officers and four former child protection officials – were found guilty of homicide, mistreatment of minors, breach of duties and abuse of authority. All pleaded not guilty. Judge Ingrid Cifuentes also ordered the investigation of former president Jimmy Morales for his role in ordering police to work at a facility where minors who had not committed crimes were held. Former social welfare secretary Carlos Rodas was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Earlier, Rodas told those gathered in the courtroom, including relatives of the victims, that he had not caused 'any harm to their daughters and the survivors'. Also among those convicted was ex-police officer Lucinda Marroquín, who held the key to the room where the girls were locked up and didn't open it when the fire started. She was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The judge said that through phone records, investigators were able to establish that at the time of the fire Marroquín was talking on her phone. The judge said a witness had testified that when told about the fire, Marroquín responded with profanity and said 'let them burn.' A former government prosecutor assigned to the protection of children was acquitted. The fire occurred on 8 March 2017, at the Virgin de la Asunción Safe Home outside Guatemala City, when 56 girls and teenagers were padlocked in a classroom allegedly for bad behavior. About 700 children – nobody knew exactly how many – lived in a home with a maximum capacity for 500. The majority had committed no crime. They were sent there by the courts for various reasons: they had run away, they were abused, they were migrants. The night before the fire, a group of girls had escaped. Hours later, the police returned them to the home. They were locked in a room that had no access to a bathroom and guarded by police. They were given foam mattresses to sleep on. After hours of demanding to be let out, one girl lit the fire. After spending hours locked inside, one of the girls lit a match to a mattress, thinking it might force police to let them out. Smoke and flames quickly filled the room, but despite cries for help, police refused to open the doors for nine minutes, witnesses said. Forty one girls and teenagers died, and 15 more survived with serious burns. Cifuentes said that the fire was the culmination of a series of abuses, some of which had been reported to authorities but not acted on. She said autopsies confirmed the presence of drugs in some of the girls that supported their complaints that they were given sleeping pills that were among the reasons they had tried to escape the facility.
