A former Guatemalan military officer, who spent three years in Lethbridge hiding from his past, will spend the next decade behind bars in a U.S. penitentiary.
A U.S. federal jury has found 55-year-old Jorge Vinicio Orantes Sosa guilty of making false statements and obtaining citizenship unlawfully.
On Monday, in a California courtroom, a jury determined Sosa had lied on his citizenship application about his role in the massacre of more than 160 people in the village of Dos Erres during the Guatemalan civil war in the 1980’s.
In January 2011, Sosa was arrested on war crime charges while visiting family in Lethbridge.
Descendants of the Dos Erres victims fought Sosa’s extradition to the United States fearing he would face citizenship application charges while an investigation into allegations connected to the Guatemalan massacre would be delayed.
Sosa has been stripped of his U.S. citizenship and sentenced to 10 years of jail time.
