In one of the darker episodes in the Guatemalan civil war, Santos López a member of a US-trained counter-insurgency force “the Kaibiles” exacted a terrible revenge on a village suspected of being sympathetic to the Mayan rebels. Despite thoroughly searching the village and finding nothing incriminating the team proceeded to torture, rape and then murder practically the entire population of the village.
The final death toll will probably never be known but it is estimated at over 200 and Santos López was found guilty of causing 171 of them. He has been sentenced to over 5000 years in jail 30 years for each of the murders and another 30 for his part in the murder of a young girl who had originally survived the massacre. The maximum sentence anyone can serve in Guatemala is 50 years but hopefully, he will never see freedom again, and one has to wonder why it took so long to prosecute him.
The sad story is recanted in more depth here
