PARLACEN Murder Trial Begins

The trial of nine Guatemalans accused of killing three Salvadoran members of the Central American regional parliament (PARLACEN) and their driver in February 2007 began Thursday in Guatemala City (Washington Post and AP).

The trial is expected to last approximately two months and will involve 140 - 200 witnesses (Prensa Libre gives 140 while the others list 200).  There also appear to be intercepted phone calls where some of the defendants were planning the murders.

Two congressmen (Manuel Castillo and Carlos Silva) as well as several former police officers are charged with the parliamentarians' murder. The prosecutor claims that Castillo and then Silva were the intellectual authors of the crime.  They met four times - twice in Guatemala (Jalpatagua and Jutiapa) and twice in in El Salvador (Santa Ana).  

Guatemalan prosecutors say Castillo and another former congressman, Carlos Silva, planned the killings because the Salvadoran politicians had been urging that Silva be stripped of his legislator's immunity so he could face money laundering charges. Silva fled to the U.S. where was arrested for being in the country illegally.

While the eight will be tried, three others would have also been on trial had they not been killed in prison under mysterious circumstances.