GERARDI WITNESS FOUND DEAD

C O N F I D E N T I A L GUATEMALA 000231

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2013
TAGS: PHUM PREL PINR KJUS GT
SUBJECT: GERARDI WITNESS FOUND DEAD

REF: 02 GUATEMALA 2649


1. (U) Summary: A key witness in the Gerardi trial was
reportedly murdered on December 19, 2002. The body of the
witness, Noe Gomez Limon, was found on January 21, nearly a
month after the murder, and details about the murder remain
fragmentary. On January 22, MINUGUA called on the government
to investigate his death and to protect the remaining
witnesses in the Gerardi case. End Summary.


2. (U) Noe Gomez Limon was an inmate at the prison in
Antigua, Guatemala in 1998, along with his brother, Gilberto
Gomez Limon. Gilberto testified during the summer 2001
Gerardi murder trial that he saw fellow inmate Obdulio
Villanueva leave the prison the night of Bishop Gerardi's
murder, April 26, 1998. In the 2001 trial, Noe testified
that he had repeatedly been threatened in an effort to
silence his brother Gilberto.


3. (SBU) MINUGUA and the Archbishop's Office on Human Rights
(ODHA) confirmed Noe Gomez Limon's accounts of being under
threat until his murder in December. His brother Gilberto's
testimony was considered "key" to the verdict in 2001, when
Obdulio Villanueva was found guilty along with three other
defendants. That verdict is now in question, after one
appeals court annulled the sentence and ordered a retrial
(reftel),prompting another court to uphold the 2001 sentence
while an appeal of the retrial decision is heard. ODHA
director Nery Rodenas told HROff that the public audience for
the presentation of the appeals will be held on January 31.


4. (C) Rodenas also informed HROff that Noe Gomez Limon was
under the Public Ministry's witness protection program in
another country until sometime in 2002, when he relinquished
their protection and returned to Guatemala. Rodenas assumes
that this was an attempt to intimidate Gilberto Gomez Limon,
brother of slain Noe Gomez Limon, from returning to Guatemala
should another trial be ordered by the courts. Gilberto is
still in the witness protection program and his testimony is
crucial to the prosecution's case against Obdulio Villanueva.


5. (C) Rodenas said that this is the first witness from the
Gerardi case that has been murdered, while virtually all of
the witnesses for the prosecution have been threatened since
their involvement in the events of April 26, 1998. Rodenas
is troubled by the reluctance of the Public Ministry to
investigate Gomez Limon's death, especially because his
murder was not reported until a month after it supposedly
occurred in his home. Rodenas said the longer the Public
Ministry waits to conduct the investigation, the less likely
it is they will obtain any results that would help shed light
on who is behind the murder.


5. (SBU) COMMENT: Continued attempts to intimidate and
eliminate witnesses in the Gerardi case remain deeply
troubling. Whether this murder was politically motivated
remains to be proven, though we are inclined to agree with
Rodenas that the convenient timing of the murder so close to
the impending appeals decision is no coincidence. Ambassador
is raising this case and our concern about the Gerardi appeal
status with the Attorney General. End Comment.
Hamilton