LOS ANGELES — U.S. authorities on Tuesday deported a former member of an elite Guatemalan military force suspected of carrying out a brutal massacre in 1982.
Pedro Pimentel Rios, 54, was flown on a government-chartered plane to Guatemala and turned over to authorities there, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pimentel, a former instructor at the Guatemalan training school for a force known as the “kaibiles,” was ordered deported from the United States in May when an immigration judge rejected his bid for asylum.
Pimentel has been wanted in Guatemala for his alleged participation in a massacre at the village of Dos Erres in December 1982 in which more than 150 people were killed.
Pimentel is one of more than a dozen former kaibiles sought by Guatemala for their alleged roles in the killings. U.S. authorities have helped track down four of them — three in the United States and one in Canada who is facing extradition requests to the United States and Spain.
Pimentel lived in Santa Ana, Calif., and worked in a sweater factory for years until he was detained by immigration authorities in May 2010. He fled Guatemala two decades ago after leaving the army, fearing he would no longer be protected against the leftist guerrillas he fought during the country’s civil war, according to Michael Selph, Pimentel’s immigration attorney.
A message seeking comment was left for Selph on Tuesday.
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