Guatemala court convicts 3 ex-paramilitaries of war crimes for rape and gives them 40-year sentences

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — More than four decades after Guatemalan soldiers and paramilitaries raped Indigenous women during their efforts to crush an insurgency in the country’s 36-year civil war, a court on Friday convicted three men of crimes against humanity in the case and sentenced them to 40 years in prison.

Thirty-six women from the Maya Achi Indigenous group came forward in 2011 to seek justice for the abuses they suffered between 1981 and 1985. They came from Rabinal, a small town about 55 miles (88 kms) north of the capital.

Six of them testified against the three men convicted Friday.

As the all female three judge panel prepared to announce the verdict, several elderly women huddled around a young woman who translated the judges’ words from Spanish to Achi.

Judge María Eugenia Castellanos, president of the tribunal, said the women had been brave to come on repeated occasions to testify. “They are crimes of solitude that stigmatize the woman. It is not easy to speak of them,” she said.

Judge Marling Mayela González Arrivillaga said there was no doubt about the women’s testimony.

In 2022, five other paramilitaries – men from the area trained by soldiers to help root out insurgents – were convicted of raping women and sentenced to 30 years in prison. No soldiers have been tried for the acts.

Guatemala's civil war pitted the army and police against leftist rebels. It ended with the signing of peace accords in 1996.

Of the 36 women who originally came forward, seven have died. The youngest was 19 when she was attacked.

Among the women who testified at this trial, was Pedrina Ixpatá. She is 63 now, but was 21 when she said she was assaulted. Félix Tum Ramírez, one of those convicted, had pointed her out to soldiers earlier in the day in the plaza.

“At 9 at night they came to take me (from the house) and took me to a big water tank. They pushed by head in the tank and when I was about to drown, let me out and asked me questions, but I said I didn’t know anything,” Ixpatá said.

Later, she was taken to a room on the local military base where she said soldiers raped her. “I couldn’t take it. My whole body hurt,” Ixtapá said. She got pregnant, aborted and wasn’t able to have children. Tum Ramírez was convicted of raping two women and for signaling four women to be raped by others.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Ixpatá has done.

One of the accused, Pedro Sánchez, told the court Friday before the ruling was handed down that he was not involved. He was convicted of raping two women.

“I am innocent of what they are accusing us, I don’t know any of these women,” Sánchez testified before the verdict. Simeón Enríquez Gómez, the third paramilitary, was also convicted of raping two of the women.

Anthropologist Aura Cumes, who testified as a forensic expert during the trial, said women suffered differently in the war than men did.

“Sexual violence was a planned and deliberate method,” she said. “It was effective for the army’s goals insomuch as these brutal acts on women had the effect of causing mistrust, of destroying healthy relationships between women and men, of splitting the family unit and destroying the community social fabric.”

Another woman testified in closed session that she had been washing clothes in the river when paramilitaries and soldiers forced her inside and told her to strip. She was raped first by paramilitaries and then by soldiers.

Through an interpreter, she explained that they took her husband that day and she never saw him again. She was four months pregnant at the time.

The Guatemalan Commission for Historical Clarification established by the United Nations to investigate human rights violations during the civil war, documented 1,465 cases of rape during the conflict. In 89% of the cases, the women were Indigenous Maya, according to the report.

Indigenous women wait outside the Supreme Court to wait for an expected ruling, by a different court, in a case against three former paramilitary fighters who were trained by the military and are accused of raping 36 women four decades ago during Guatemala's civil war, in Guatemala City, Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Indigenous women arrive outside the Supreme Court to wait for an expected ruling, by a different court, in a case against three former paramilitary fighters who were trained by the military and are accused of raping 36 women four decades ago during Guatemala's civil war, in Guatemala City, Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Indigenous women arrive outside the Supreme Court to wait for an expected ruling, by a different court, in a case against three former paramilitary fighters who were trained by the military and are accused of raping 36 women four decades ago during Guatemala's civil war, in Guatemala City, Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Indigenous women hold the sign in Spanish "Justice for women" outside the Supreme Court as they wait for an expected ruling, by a different court, in a case against three former paramilitary fighters who were trained by the military and are accused of raping 36 women four decades ago during Guatemala's civil war, in Guatemala City, Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Indigenous women stand next to an altar they created outside the Supreme Court as they wait for an expected ruling, by a different court, in a case against three former paramilitary fighters who were trained by the military and are accused of raping 36 women four decades ago during Guatemala's civil war, in Guatemala City, Friday, May 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

The attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.

The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”

Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners Saturday, he said.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

This photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, shows a fragment believed to be a part of a Russian Oreshnik intermediate range hypersonic ballistic missile that hit the Lviv region. (Ukrainian Security Service via AP)

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, second left, listens to British Defense Secretary John Healey during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)