A Guatemalan court on Wednesday denied parole to army Capt. Byron Lima Oliva, who is serving a 20-year prison term for the April 26, 1998, murder of Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi. Judge Javier Sotomora told a press conference that he rejected Lima’s request for early release, filed on April 14, because he has not met the requirements of Guatemala’s Sentence Reduction Law, including one obligating him to perform social work.
The judge also said parole would be “inappropriate” because Lima Oliva “has criminal cases pending,” without going into detail.
Lima Oliva’s personal diary, seized during an inspection of the Pavon maximum-security penitentiary and work farm where he is imprisoned, indicate the convict may have links to Mexico’s Los Zetas drug cartel, Guatemala’s El Periodico daily reported last month.
The article also cited a source at Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office as saying that, based on an initial analysis of the diary entries, Lima conducts business inside the prison and collects protection payments from other inmates.
The court’s ruling was issued just days before the 12th anniversary of the bishop’s slaying. Commemoration of his death began Wednesday with the opening of the crypt at the Metropolitan Cathedral where his remains lie.
Gerardi, 75, was found beaten to death in the garage of the rectory where he lived just two days after a commission he headed released a report documenting 55,000 human rights violations during Guatemala’s 1960-1996 civil war, most of them committed by the army.
Capt. Lima Oliva and his father, Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, were arrested on Jan. 22, 2000, for the murder of Gerardi and were given 20 years behind bars in 2001, a sentence that was upheld on appeal.
Lima Estrada remains behind bars after an appellate court overturned a decision last month to grant him parole. The Rev. Mario Orantes, sentenced as an accomplice to the killing, was denied parole last August.
The human rights office of the Guatemala City Archdiocese, a plaintiff in the case, has repeatedly opposed efforts by the military men to secure early release.
Another soldier implicated in Gerardi’s murder, Obdulio Villanueva, was killed and decapitated on Feb. 12, 2003, during a riot at the prison where he was being held.
