It is worth noting the progress achieved in the first semester of 2022 in the trials of high-impact cases of crimes committed during the Internal Armed Conflict. According to Guatemalan and international institutions, these advances, as well as those achieved in recent years, are at the root of the attacks on justice operators mentioned above:

  • Sexual violence case against Achí women: on January 24, 2022, the Highest Risk Court A, composed of Yassmin Barrios, Patricia Bustamente and Gervi Sical issued a sentence in the emblematic case of the Achí Women, sentencing 5 former civilian self-defense patrol members (former PAC) to 30 years for being "guilty of crimes against the duties of humanity in its modality of sexual violence". Those convicted are: Benvenuto Ruíz Aquino, Bernardo Ruíz Aquino, Damián Cuxum Alvarado, Gabriel Cuxum Alvarado and Francisco Cuxum Alvarado. This ruling comes 40 years after the crimes occurred during the Internal Armed Conflict (CAI) and a decade after the complaint filed in 2011 by 36 women survivors of sexual violence.
  • Diario Militar Case: On May 6, 2022, the High Risk Court B, presided over by Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez, decided to send to oral and public trial 9 ex-military and ex-policemen of the 12 that were indicted in the second semester of 2021 for participating, between 1983 and 1985, under the de facto government of Óscar Humberto Mejía Víctores, in the detention and disappearance by the State of Guatemala of 183 people registered in the so-called "Diario Militar" or "Dossier de la Muerte" (Military Diary or "Dossier of Death"). At the same time, on May 23, 2022, the judge indicted Toribio Acevedo Ramírez, who two weeks earlier had been detained at the Panama airport with an international arrest warrant. He will be investigated for crimes against the duties of humanity, forced disappearance, murder and attempted murder.
  • Tactic case: on February 24, 2022, the High Risk Court "D" issued a sentence sentencing former military commissioner José Manuel Castañeda Aparicio to 45 years of non-commutable prison, for the forced disappearance of leaders Rodolfo López Quej, Francisco Guerrero López and Jacobo López Ac. The events took place during one of the most bloody periods of the CAI, during the de facto government of the military coup leader Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983). The sentence comes almost four decades after the three community leaders were kidnapped from their homes in the village of Tampo, in the municipality of Tactic, in Alta Verapaz. Jacobo López Ac was one of the 565 people exhumed by the Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) in the former Military Zone No. 21 (now known as CREOMPAZ) between 2012 and 2013 and identified in 2016 thanks to DNA tests. The López family still does not know the whereabouts of Rodolfo López Quej and Francisco Guerrero López.
  • Dos Erres Case: In April 2022, the High Risk Court "A" decided to prosecute Alfonso Bulux Vicente, former member of a military patrol of the elite Kaibil Corps, for his participation, between December 6 and 8, 1982, in the massacre of some 200 people in the Dos Erres plot, located in the municipality of La Libertad, Petén. The judge ordered Bulux, who was arrested on September 17, 2021, to be remanded in custody. Six ex-kaibiles have already been convicted in this case, while two others are awaiting trial in jail.