Last week we told you how former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt had been sentenced to 80 years in jail by a Human Rights Court for genocide of his own people. Well, now, Guatemala's highest court, the Constitutional Court has thrown out the conviction and ordered that Rios Montt's trial should restart from the point where it stood on 19th April. That's when Rios Montt's lawyer was kicked out of the courtroom – leaving Rios Montt temporarily without a legal defence. So, now, all the testimonies and witness statements heard from that point onwards will have to be delivered again along with the closing statements from both sides.
We should note that in Guatemala it is not unusual for such matters to be endlessly tied up in court.
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