A Guatemalan judge has suspended the trial of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who faces charges of genocide, ruling all action taken from November 2011 as illegal.
Judge Carol Patricia Flores was removed from the case in February 2012, before being reinstated recently. Her decision to restart the trial effectively renders all action by the prosecution useless, meaning the trial will have to restart. Flores went on to state,
"I am not doing this because I want to, but because it has been ordered by the constitutional court and the supreme court".
The decision though has angered prosecutors and relatives, who wept and shouted that she was a “sold-out judge”, once the decision was announced. State prosecutor Orlando Lopez added,
"This makes a mockery of the law… Returning the entire process back to a previous phase that has already concluded is illegal."
