Guatemala Officials Apologize for Killing

GUATEMALA CITY — President Oscar Berger joined the heads of Congress and the Supreme Court on Thursday in publicly acknowledging government responsibility for the 1990 killing of human rights activist Myrna Mack.

The somber ceremony at the presidential palace came at the urging of the Costa Rican-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

“In the name of the state, I ask for the forgiveness of the Mack family and of the people of Guatemala for the murder of this young anthropologist,” Berger said.

Mack was stabbed 27 times outside her downtown Guatemala City office on Sept. 11, 1990. The 39-year-old allegedly angered the military when she wrote a groundbreaking report blaming government anti-insurgency campaigns for killing Maya civilians during the country’s 1961-96 civil war.

In October 2002, Col. Juan Valencia Osorio, an assistant director of the presidential guard, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for ordering a fellow member of the guard to kill Mack.

But Valencia was freed by an appeals court in November. The Supreme Court later overturned that ruling and ordered Valencia to be returned to prison, but by then he had vanished.

Gen. Edgar Augusto Godoy -- who once headed the presidential guard -- and Col. Juan Guillermo Oliva were found not guilty during the trial that convicted Valencia.

Noel de Jesus Beteta, another former guard member, is serving a 25-year sentence for Mack’s murder.