c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A team of U.S. investigators, working with the Archdiocese of Guatemala, says the Guatemalan government “does not want a real investigation” into the death of human rights advocate Bishop Juan Jose Gerardi Conedera and is ignoring evidence pointing to military involvement in the slaying.

On Thursday (Oct. 8), the team told a Washington news conference that their evidence flatly contradicts the Guatemalan government’s findings in its probe of Gerardi and the government’s probe is incompetent and has ignored “clear evidence” of the military’s involvement.

They called for the FBI and CIA to declassify and release their records on the case.

Gerardi, 75, was killed and his body mutilated in his garage on April 26, just 48 hours after he presided at the release of a report blaming the Guatemalan army for the great majority of the human rights violations during the country’s decades-long civil war.

The government contends the murder was a crime of passion in which a fellow priest living with Gerardi, the Rev. Mario Leonel Orantes Najara, ordered his dog to attack the bishop and then crushed the prelate’s head with a cement block.

But Guatemala’s long history of human rights atrocities, including 400 civilian massacres carried out by the military _ atrocities documented by the archdiocese’s human rights office under Gerardi’s direction _ have led human rights proponents to see military or paramilitary forces as being responsible for the killing.

“The killing of the archbishop is a message to anyone that thought it (the peace process) was going to go on-that no one is safe,” said Jack Palladino, a San Francisco lawyer and private investigator.

Palladino, Dr. Robert C. Bux, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner for Bexar County, Texas, and Dr. Norman D. Sperber, Chief Forensic Dentist for San Diego and Imperial Counties, Calif., made up the team of U.S. experts who visited Guatemala in mid-September and participated in an autopsy on Gerardi’s exhumed body.

“The last thing the (Guatemalan) government wants to do is have a real investigation. All they want is a fall guy. If he’s a priest, so much the better,” Palladino told the news conference.

Among the findings the team presented were its belief a second weapon was used which Palladino described as “a long slightly rounded weapon _ an iron bar, crowbar or a pipe; that weapon could not have been a cement block. That weapon has never been found.”

The team also claims that at least two attackers were involved in the murder, based on Gerardi’s large stature and evidence that his body had been dragged a considerable distance.

They also presented evidence implicating the military including a phone call made from the bishop’s home to a public telephone near a military installation and the reported sighting of a car near the crime scene traced to the military.

The U.S. team report also cited “a credible and confidential source” which named two high level military officials as responsible for the murder.

Dr. Reverte Coma, who performed the original autopsy, was harshly criticized by the U.S. investigators who described the Guatemalan medical official as elderly and incompetent. Documents released by investigators imply that Coma’s loyalty lies with the government.

Coma, Palladino said, failed to preserve possible evidence, adding that the Guatemalan doctor’s public statement expressing a desire to boil the bishop’s body “because the truth lies in the bones,” convinced the U.S. team he lacked a basic knowledge of correct forensic techniques.

Coma also said a dog bite was responsible for injuries to the bishop’s head, a conclusion which bewildered and dismayed the American investigators who said Coma failed to recognize one of the most common head wound injuries seen everyday in emergency rooms.

Gerardi’s wounds “did not reveal anything that was even close to being consistent with a dog’s bite,” Sperber said in a statement.

In addition, Baloo, the 11-year-old German Shepherd belonging to Orantes and accused of attacking Gerardi, suffers from a crippling degenerative spinal disease and is physically unable to jump or leap to the attack, according to a Guatemalan veterinarian.

Videotape shown by the U.S. team showed an elderly, docile dog who struggled and collapsed when led through a passageway. “This dog cannot lift his leg to pee,” said Palladino.

With an end to the civil war two years ago, Guatemala has been dropped from the international community’s list of severe human rights violators. But the country stands to lose that support _ and billions of dollars in aid _ if the international community loses confidence in the government’s commitment to human rights.

The U.S. team presented its findings just days before international donor countries meet in Brussels to discuss Guatemala’s progress in the post-civil war transition.

Orantes remains imprisoned in frail mental and physical health, according to the archdiocese.

DEA END ROCKWOOD