Guatemalan judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez who brought former dictator José Efraín Ríos Montt to trial for genocide and former president Otto Pérez Molina on corruption chargesannounced on Tuesday that he resigned from his position in the midst of criminal proceedings against him, for alleged failures in previous resolutions issued by him.
Gálvez said that justice in the country is manipulated and that it does not guarantee him a fair defense.
The last thing that was known about the judge, until the resignation published in a video on his social networks, was that he had left the country, along with a process in which he sought to withdraw his immunity to investigate him for failures in due process. There has been no record of his entry into the country since he left in early November.
“Right now, judicial independence is being manipulated and processes are not being guaranteed properly, especially constitutional guarantees and due process,” said Gálvez.
During his time as a judge, he heard cases on the structures of the organized crime, corruption and processes of armed conflict. Now, he announced, he would be attentive to the situation in Guatemala.
Gálvez is facing an investigation into a complaint filed by an ultra-right foundation that defends soldiers accused of war crimes. The interpellants cross out the judicial action for allegedly having exceeded the use of pretrial detention in five legal cases, despite the fact that Gálvez did not know three of them.
The president of the Foundation against Terrorism, Ricardo Méndez Ruíz, is an activist who had already expressed opinions against the judge through his social networks. He assured that he would see Gálvez imprisoned. The Supreme Court of Justice admitted and processed the complaint against the judge, with the accompaniment of the Public Ministry.
Gálvez is a renowned judge who sat dozens of soldiers accused of war crimes during the internal armed conflict in Guatemala between the army and the leftist guerrillas between 1960 and 1996.
The most recent case and for which the judge assures increased harassment against him is the one known as Diario Militar, a dossier that contained a police record of the kidnapping, torture, disappearance and execution of more than a hundred Guatemalan students, professionals, academics accused in the 80s of belonging to the guerrilla.
A report on the historical truth in the country realizes that more than 200,000 people died during the war, another 45,000 were disappeared. According to the document, 97 percent of the crimes were perpetrated by the army and paramilitary groups and the remaining 3 percent by leftist guerrillas.
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