Ex-Guatemala police chief convicted by Swiss court of prisoner murders

Erwin Sperisen has faced four trials in Switzerland Keystone / Martial Trezzini

Former Guatemala police chief, Erwin Sperisen, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison after being found guilty by a Geneva court of aiding and abetting the murder of seven prisoners in Guatemala.

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Sperisen, a dual Swiss-Guatemalan citizen, was on trial in Geneva for the fourth time, accused of sanctioning the murders when he was chief of police in Guatemala.

The defenceless victims had been under Sperisen’s protection, said the chairwoman of the Criminal Chamber of Appeal and Review on Thursday. They had been shot in a ‘cowardly and brutal manner’.

+ Sperisen case ‘legacy of Guatemala’s dirty war’

The court ruled that Sperisen was an accomplice in the crime and therefore sentenced him to 14 years in prison. The defence said it would appeal to the Federal Supreme Court again.

Hit squad execution

In this fourth trial, the judges found the witnesses to be particularly credible. According to their testimony, Sperisen, in his capacity as chief of police, was informed about the machinations of the hit squad that executed the prisoners.

The case has been dragging on for more than 12 years due to numerous complaints. Sperisen, now 54, fled to Switzerland with his family in 2007. He was arrested in Geneva in 2012 and originally charged with ten murders.

In addition to the seven prisoners who died in the mutiny at the Pavon prison, the Geneva public prosecutor’s office also accused him of involvement in the execution of three men who had escaped from another Guatemalan prison.

ECHR intervention

In the first two trials, Sperisen was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. When he stood trial for the third time in Geneva, he was only accused of being an accessory to murder. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Sperisen has spent more than 11 years in prison before being released in October 2023. The Federal Supreme Court overturned his conviction in June 2023 following a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The Strasbourg judges had come to the conclusion that the President of the Appeals Chamber of the Geneva Court of Appeal was biased at the trial in April 2018 and that Sperisen had not received a fair trial.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].