Sperisen stands before a Geneva court for the fourth time
Published: Thursday, Aug 29th 2024, 09:50
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The fourth trial against the former police chief of Guatemala, Erwin Sperisen, begins on Monday in Geneva. The Swiss-Guatemalan dual citizen, whose convictions have been overturned, still has to answer for accessory to murder. His lawyers want to clear him completely, otherwise they want to take the case back to the European Court of Human Rights.
Sperisen is accused of being involved in the killing of seven prisoners in Guatemala in 2006, when the Guatemalan security forces stormed a prison that had come under the control of influential prisoners.
The case, which has been accompanied by numerous appeals to the Federal Supreme Court, has been dragging on for more than twelve years. Erwin Sperisen, now 54, fled to Switzerland with his family in 2007. He was arrested in Geneva in 2012. He spent more than eleven years in custody, between pre-trial detention, house arrest and a prison sentence.
Sperisen was originally charged with ten murders. In addition to the seven prisoners who died in the mutiny at the Pavon prison, the Geneva public prosecutor's office also accused him of involvement in the execution of three men who had escaped from El Infiernieto prison, another Guatemalan prison.
In the first two trials, Sperisen was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. When he stood trial for the third time in Geneva, he was only accused of accessory to murder. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
Eleven years in captivity
Sperisen spent more than eleven years in prison. He was released in October 2023. The Federal Supreme Court overturned his conviction in June 2023 following a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).
The Strasbourg judges came to the conclusion that the President of the Appeals Chamber of the Geneva Court of Appeal was biased during the trial in April 2018 and that Sperisen had not received a fair trial.
This is now set to change in the fourth trial, which runs from September 2 to 13. This will again take place before the Court of Appeal in Geneva.
Sperisen's lawyers will demand that their client be fully exonerated this time. Sperisen was imprisoned in Witzwil BE until his last conviction was overturned by the Federal Supreme Court. Today he can move around freely: "He has not been convicted at the moment, his passport has been returned to him and he can travel without restriction," said his lawyer Giorgio Campá.
Sperisen's lawyers have made it clear that they would appeal to the ECtHR again if their client were convicted. In particular, they point out that Sperisen was considered an accomplice of his former lieutenant Javier Figueroa. However, the latter was tried in Austria for the same crimes and was acquitted in 2013. Sperisen had thus become an accomplice of an acquitted man, which constituted a "complete legal aberration".
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