Controversy, confusion reign in investigation
of bishops murder
By Paul Jeffrey
Special to the National Catholic Reporter Guatemala
City
Six months after Bishop Juan Gerardi was brutally murdered,
controversy and confusion continue to characterize the governments
investigation of the crime.
On Oct. 21, Fr. Mario Orantes, a priest who shared living quarters
with Gerardi at the inner-city San Sebastian parish, was formally charged with
the prelates April 26 slaying.
Orantes maintains he is innocent, and church leaders have publicly
supported him. If they let him go, the government couldnt claim, at
an international level, that there is justice in Guatemala, even if all they
have is a scapegoat, declared Auxiliary Bishop Mario Rios Montt,
Gerardis replacement as head of the Archdiocesan Human Rights Office.
The last thing the government wants to do is have a real
investigation, commented Jack Palladino, a San Francisco private
investigator who witnessed a second autopsy of Gerardis body in
September. All they want is a fall guy. If hes a priest, so much
the better.
French diplomat Jean Arnault, head of the United Nations
contingent charged with verifying Guatemalas peace accords, said the
widespread perception that the murder was politically motivated remains
fully justified.
We know that groups exist which have the capacity of
executing a political crime and making it look like common crime, Arnault
said. Monseñor Gerardis murder remains a thick shadow across
the administration of justice.
Government prosecutor Otto Ardón has built a case against
Orantes based on the allegedly homosexual priests committing a
crime of passion. Contradictions in Orantes testimony about what
happened the night of the killing have fueled speculation. While church leaders
cautiously maintain Orantes innocence, theyre also uneasy with
publicly discussing his sexual orientation. Privately, some even worry that
Orantes was blackmailed into assuming some role in the killing or its
aftermath.
The main evidence against Orantes appears to be the testimony of
José Reverte, a Spanish forensic specialist who, after examining photos
of Gerardis body, claimed he found evidence of dog bites. If true, that
would contradict Orantes testimony that his aging German shepherd, Baloo,
was locked away the night of the killing. Yet Mario Guerra, the physician who
performed the original autopsy, vehemently denied evidence of any animal
bites.
No agreement at autopsy
To put the controversy to rest, church officials pushed to exhume
Gerardis body from the crypts below the Metropolitan Cathedral. When an
international team of 11 forensic specialists finally gathered around the
episcopal cadaver on Sept. 17 and 18, the group failed to come to an agreement
on what caused Gerardis death.
As autopsies go, it was rather impassioned. Before the examination
began, Ardón challenged the right of three U.S. specialists invited by
church authorities to assist in the autopsy. The group argued for two hours
before Judge Isaias Figueroa agreed to let them remain, but without the right
to actually touch the cadaver.
Church officials claimed Reverte cut off one of Gerardis
fingers and tried to take it away for an exhibit in a criminology museum in
Madrid. Reverte, for his part, claimed the church-sponsored experts destroyed
one suspicious wound by scraping it with a scalpel, allegedly to clean it.
According to the three U.S. experts invited by Catholic officials
to participate, the second autopsy showed that the prelate had been struck by
two objects, a large block of cement and a long cylindrical object, perhaps a
pipe, a fact that suggests two murderers.
One of the three U.S. experts, forensic dentist Norman Sperber,
founder of the FBIs canine evidence lab, declared that the bishops
body presented no signs of animal bites. Sperber suggested that Reverte had
been mislead by the photographs he examined, which Sperber said had been
slightly enlarged without Revertes knowledge.
Other participants also ruled out evidence of animal bites, though
both a hospital report on x-rays of the body and the report of one specialist,
ironically hired by Orantes attorney, did leave open the possibility of
animal bites.
Reverte emerged from the autopsy to claim that the evidence fully
bolstered his theory that a dog was involved and that the dog in question had
to be Baloo. Reverte described Baloo as a ferocious animal and trained to
attack. He described the assault: The bishop enters his house by
the garage and surprises the priest in some abnormal activity, for which he
reprimands him. The priest, infuriated, orders the dog to attack the
bishop. Reverte claimed Orantes gave the order to attack in German.
Revertes public condemnation of Orantes provoked widespread
criticism here. Julio Cesar Barreno, president of the Guatemalan Association of
Physicians and Surgeons, said his group would make a formal complaint to its
Spanish counterpart, charging Reverte with violating medical ethics and
judicial process. He said Reverte made comments about what happened at the
crime scene without ever visiting it or talking to anyone who did.
Its not the first time Reverte has caused a controversy in
Central America. In 1993, he was invited by Salvadoran President Alfredo
Cristiani to assist the U.N. Truth Commission in investigating wartime
massacres. After U.N. officials exhumed 300 bodies at El Mozote, Reverte argued
against the overwhelming evidence that the 1981 massacre had been committed by
government troops. He became such a pain in the side of serious investigators
that the head of the truth commission, former Colombian President Belisario
Betancur, asked Felipe Gonzalez, then president of Spain, to withdraw Reverte
from the country.
Several here have suggested that Reverte is playing the same role
in the Gerardi case: On behalf of the government, he produces pseudoscientific
arguments that divert attention from the true authors of the violence, the
military.
The government and the army have masterfully kept things
foggy, murky and unclear, throwing curve balls at every opportune moment,
said Dennis Smith, a Presbyterian church (USA) missionary here.
Church officials reported early in the case that they had evidence
linking two high-ranking military officials to the killing. They complained
that Ardón was so focused on proving a case against Orantes that he let
slip the opportunity to follow leads implicating the armed forces. The
Archdiocesan Human Rights Office, which had been made a plaintiff in the case,
filed a petition in September asking that Ardón, who once worked for the
air force, be removed from the case. When the petition was denied by the Public
Ministry, the church appealed to Guatemalas Supreme Court.
With pressure building at home and abroad to investigate military
involvement in the murder, Ardón finally went through the motions in
early October of interviewing six military officials who have been linked to
the case by church authorities or human rights activists. All came in
voluntarily to Ardóns office to present prepared statements
denying any involvement. Yet reportedly none were interrogated by Ardón
or his assistants, an uncommon concession to possible suspects in a murder
case.
One of the officials linked to the case is Col. Juan Oliva
Carrera, who is awaiting trial for his role in the 1990 assassination of
anthropologist Myrna Mack, a close associate of Gerardi. Olivas name and
phone number were found in the possessions of Margarita López, the San
Sebastian parish housekeeper who was arrested with Orantes on July 22 but who
was released in August. Oliva, a top official of the Presidential Guard, was
discharged unexpectedly by the army in early October, just days before he
testified. Also discharged with Oliva were three other officers linked to a
high-profile corruption and smuggling investigation.
Falling behind on reforms
Rios said he believes the militarys alleged role in the
killing could have been motivated not only by anger over the scalding
condemnation of military abuses contained in Guatemala, Never
Again! the human rights report Gerardi released two days before he was
killed, but also to hush up the church in the face of the governments
failures to live up to the terms of the 1996 peace accords. The government is
falling further and further behind on the dramatic land and tax reforms called
for by the accords. President Alvaro Arz long ago grew weary of
Guatemalas bishops nagging him about justice and peace.
In an Oct. 26 communiqué commemorating the six-month
anniversary of the killing, the episcopal conference declared the killing
a premeditated blow to the Guatemalan Catholic church, designed to
limit our pastoral action and remind us that the most fearful forces in
the country are still intact and possess enormous power. The bishops said
there was a campaign underway to discredit our church.
Asked who is attacking the church, Rios refused to name names,
instead stating, Some pull the trigger, others give the order to do so,
while still others inspire the actions or cover up evidence of the crime.
National Catholic Reporter, November 13,
1998
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