EX-POLICE OFFICER INCLUDED IN PROCEEDING AND FACING CHARGES FOR EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLING

Guatemala, June 6, 2012. Nicolás Camajá Bach was included in proceedings and remanded in custody by Court A of the First Instance for High-Risk Matters. Bach is accused of the extra-judicial killing of Edwin Estuardo Santacruz Rodríguez, in Río Hondo, Zacapa, on November 3, 2005.

The former officer was arrested yesterday by the National Civil Police (PNC) in the city of Antigua, Guatemala. He is accused of allegedly forming part of a criminal organization—created in 2005 from within the Ministry of the Interior and the PNC—that extra-judicially killed various fugitives from the El Infiernito Prison, Escuintla. The fugitives escaped on October 22, 2005.

Case Background
Following the escape of nineteen inmates from the high-security El Infiernito Prison (on October 22, 2005), former officer Camajá Bach—along with other former police officers and officials who, at the time, worked at the Ministry of the Interior—executed the "Gavilán Plan" to locate the inmates who were at large. As part of this plan, inmate Edwin Estuardo Santacruz Rodríguez was detained and extra-judicially killed.

Furthermore, this structure is linked with extra-judicially killing other fugitives from El Infiernito and seven inmates from the Pavón Prison on September 25, 2006. In these cases, charges have been brought against, among others, former Minister of the Interior, Carlos Vielmann; former Director of the PNC, Erwin Sperisen; and former Deputy Director of the PNC Investigations, Javier Figueroa.