Efrain Rios Montt

Jailed: Efrain Rios Montt. Photo: AFP

Efrain Rios Montt, the military dictator who ruled Guatemala during one of the bloodiest phases of its civil war, has been found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the systematic massacre and displacement of Mayan people.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

The ruling on Friday by a three-judge panel came after a dramatic trial that featured testimony from dozens of Maya. They described atrocities committed by the Guatemalan army and security forces as they sought to clean the countryside of Marxist guerrillas and sympathisers in 1982 and 1983, when Rios Montt, a general and coup leader, was the de facto leader.

The ruling is likely to be derided by Guatemalan conservatives, many of whom see Rios Montt as a hero who prevented the country being overtaken by communist rebels.

International human rights groups, however, had been hoping for such an outcome for decades.

A 1999 report by the country's truth and reconciliation commission listed widespread human rights abuses during the civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996 and claimed more than 200,000 lives. The panel found that 93 per cent of the rights violations were committed by the government or its paramilitary allies.

Guatemalan prosecutors accused Rios Montt of responsibility for the massacre of more than 1700 Ixil Maya, as well as systematic rape, torture and the burning of villages.

Rios Montt and his lawyers had argued that as the country's political leader he should not be held responsible for military matters that occurred in a rural province.

''I never authorised, I never signed, I never proposed, I never ordered that a race, ethnicity or religion be attacked,'' the 86-year-old Rios Montt said in court on Thursday evening. ''I never did it.''

But the judges decided otherwise. ''Rios Montt was aware of everything that was happening, and did not stop it, despite having the power to stop it,'' Judge Yassmin Barrios said on the panel's behalf.

Los Angeles Times, AFP