Guatemala: President blames mafia hit for prison deaths

Gunmen stormed a Guatemalan prison and gunned down four jailed police officers in a mafia hit, the country’s leader said.

The four men had been detained over suspected involvement in the killing of three visiting Salvadorean politicians.

President Oscar Berger said “organised crime gangs” reached the officers’ cell on Sunday after getting past eight locked doors at the prison, and were responsible for the “violent deaths of four important witnesses who could have helped the investigation”.

Berger said it still was not clear whether or not drug trafficking or other organised crime was involved, but said officials determined that inmates were not to blame.

A major question is how the gunmen were able to get past eight doors to reach the suspects, Berger said.

Twenty-two prison guards were detained for questioning and there were reports that the killers may have worn guard uniforms, or that guards may have cleared visitors from the prison prior to the attack.

“It is clear that the people who committed these killings have some level of influence inside the police, prison or government structure,” said Rodrigo Avila, head of El Salvador’s police force.

Guatemalan Attorney General Juan Luis Florido said both the US FBI and El Salvador’s attorney general’s office were assisting in the investigation.

The suspects’ killings were the latest twist in the bizarre case that has raised questions about corruption and drug ties in Central America. US officials estimate that 75% of the cocaine that reaches American soil passes through Guatemala.

Salvadoran President Tony Saca, who asked the FBI to help investigate the case, meets today with US President George Bush at the White House, while Bush travels to Guatemala next month to talk to Berger about the growing drug problem.

The four officers killed on Sunday at the prison in Cuilapa, 40 miles east of Guatemala City, included Luis Arturo Herrera, head of the Guatemalan National Police organised crime unit, and three of his officers. Photos showed a bloody tangle of bodies and overturned beds on the floor of their cell.

They had been arrested on Thursday in connection with the February 19 killing of three Central American Parliament members, including Eduardo D’Aubuisson, son of El Salvador’s late right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, and their driver.

The suspects were accused of killing the Salvadorans, setting fire to their bodies and leaving their charred remains along a road outside Guatemala City.

The officers had been taken to the high-security prison at Cuilapa, occupied mostly by gang members, after their lawyer said their lives were in danger at a detention centre in Guatemala City.

Sunday’s killings sparked a 12-hour prison riot. Inmates took five hostages, including the prison director, and released them unharmed early yesterday after officials allowed them to tell a Guatemalan television crew that they were not responsible for the officers’ slayings.

D’Aubuisson and the other Salvadoran politicians represented their country at the Central American Parliament, which has 132 members representing five Central American nations, in Guatemala City.

They were members of El Salvador’s ruling party, the Nationalist Republican Alliance.

D’Aubuisson’s late father allegedly founded El Salvador’s death squads, which were responsible for the kidnap, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of civilians during the 1980-to-1992 civil war.

Sunday’s killings only raised more questions about who was behind the Salvadorans’ murders.

Salvadoran police told reporters the officers, who were linked to the murders through a satellite transponder in their car, had confessed, but Guatemalan prosecutors said they had refused to speak.

El Salvador’s police chief, Rodrigo Avila, said someone wanted to “shut these guys up so that they do not implicate” anyone else. “It is not normal that these types of things happen.”

He said Guatemalan officials told him the men were able to get into the prison because they were dressed as guards.

Salvadoran Public Security Minister Rene Figueroa said the killings “demonstrated that organised crime has infiltrated the highest levels of the National Civil Police in Guatemala”.

A mother of an inmate said that her daughter-in-law was visiting the prison on Sunday when guards forced her and other visitors out.

“They told them to get out because there was going to be a search and they starting pushing everyone,” she said. “Once (the visitors) were outside, they saw armed men enter the jail. Then, everyone outside heard gunshots.”