GUATEMALA CITY
AP
—
A Guatemalan judge convicted six individuals of varied crimes Tuesday in reference to the deaths of 41 girls in a 2017 fire at a facility for at-risk youth that had a historical past of abuse.
They had all declared their innocence Tuesday. Judge Ingrid Cifuentes handed down cumulative sentences of six years to 25 years for fees starting from manslaughter to abuse of authority. She additionally ordered the investigation of former President Jimmy Morales for his function in ordering police to work at a facility the place minors who had not dedicated crimes had been held.
Prosecutors had earlier requested sentences as much as 131 years for some of these convicted, who had been all former authorities staff, together with a number of whose duties included defending youngsters.
Former Social Welfare Secretary Carlos Rodas was sentenced to 25 years in jail.
Earlier, Rodas informed these gathered in the courtroom, together with family members of the victims, that he had not precipitated “any harm to their daughters and the survivors.”
Also amongst these convicted was ex-police officer Lucinda Marroquín, who held the important thing to the room the place the girls had been locked up and didn’t open it when the fire began. She was sentenced to 13 years in jail.
The judge mentioned that by way of telephone data, investigators had been in a position to set up that at the time of the fire Marroquín was speaking on her telephone. The judge mentioned a witness had testified that when informed in regards to the fire, Marroquín responded with profanity and mentioned “let them burn.”
A former authorities prosecutor assigned to the safety of youngsters was acquitted.
On March 8, 2017, a lady at the Virgen de la Asuncion Safe Home – situated 14 miles east of Guatemala City – lit a foam mattress on fire in the room the place a bunch of girls had been locked up for hours with out entry to a rest room. Smoke and flames shortly crammed the room killing 41 girls and injuring 15.
About 700 youngsters – no one knew precisely what number of – lived in a house with a most capability for 500. The majority had dedicated no crime. They had been despatched there by the courts for varied causes – they’d run away, they had been abused, they had been migrants.
The evening earlier than the fire, a bunch of girls had escaped. Hours later, the police returned them to the house. They had been locked in a room that had no entry to a rest room and guarded by police. They got foam mattresses to sleep on.
After hours of demanding to be let loose, one lady lit the fire.
Cifuentes mentioned that the fire was the fruits of a collection of abuses, some of which had been reported to authorities, however not acted on. She mentioned autopsies confirmed the presence of medicine in some of the girls that supported their complaints that they got sleeping capsules that had been among the many causes they’d tried to flee the facility.