Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

Guatemala ex-police chief Erwin Sperisen in 2007

This morning’s post about impunity in Colombia, could be combined with the case of Erwin Sperisen, Guatemala’s ex-police chief, who in 2014 was sentenced to life in prison in Switzerland over the deaths of seven prisoners in 2006. His appeal is currently (4 to 8 May) serving before the Criminal Chamber of Geneva’s Court of Justice in Switzerland. The Prosecutor has again demanded life imprisonment. Sperisen could not be extradited as has Swiss-Guatemalan dual nationality. Sperisen was tried under a law allowing Swiss nationals to be tried in their own country for crimes committed abroad. [The former Guatemalan Interior Minister Carlos Vielmann, who fled the country at the same time as Sperisen, is due to stand trial on similar charges in Spain.]

More information about this case can be found at http://www.trial-ch.org/guatemala-en/index.html. TRIAL (TRack Impunity Always) is a very interesting NGO that goes after the perpetrators. The mirror image of a Gallery of Human Rights Defenders so to say!