Facts
In September 2006, Erwin Sperisen, along with 3000 officers of the National Civilian Police (NCP) of Guatemala and members of the army, intervened in the Pavón prison, a high security prison controlled by prisoners, to restore State authority. This intervention ended in the arrest and the extrajudicial execution of seven prisoners.
Procedure
In 2009, several Swiss organizations led by TRIAL International filed a criminal denunciation against Erwin Sperisen with the Office of the Prosecutor in Geneva, after discovering that he was living in Switzerland. He was arrested on 31 August 2012 in Geneva. In March 2013, the mother of one of the victims joined the criminal proceedings. Sperisen’s trial opened on 15 May 2014 in Geneva. He was convicted on 6 June 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the crimes he committed in the Pavón prison, but he was acquitted of other charges.
Sperisen appealed the conviction and his appeal trial was held from 4 to 8 May 2015 before the Criminal Chamber of the Geneva Court of Appeal. On 12 May 2015, the Criminal Chamber upheld the life imprisonment sentence. In addition to the seven extrajudicial executions for which Sperisen was found guilty in the first instance, he was condemned as jointly responsible for the murder of three fugitives from the Infiernito prison (the Gavilan Plan), though not as a direct perpetrator. Sperisen lodged an appeal against the conviction.
On 29 June 2017, the Swiss Federal Court overturned the judgment of the Criminal Chamber of the Geneva Court of Appeal and ordered Sperisen’s retrial. On 20 September 2017, the Swiss Federal Court allowed Sperisen’s release pending his retrial. Sperisen’s new trial took place in April 2018 in Geneva. On 27 April 2018, Sperisen was sentenced to a 15-year sentence for his complicity in the 2006 murders. He appealed the judgment to the Swiss Federal Court. On 14 November 2019, the Swiss Federal Court confirmed the conviction of Erwin Sperisen and his sentence to 15 years in prison. The Court confirmed his complicity in the killing of seven detainees during the repression of a mutiny at Pavón prison in September 2006. Erwin Sperisen appealed the decision before the European Court of Human rights (ECtHR).
On 13 June 2023, the above-mentioned Court concluded that there had been a violation of art. 6 § 1 of the European convention on Human rights (right to a fair trial): the Court considered that, the detention judge wording used in her 3 October 2017’s decision went beyond mere suspicion and that, as a result, Erwin Sperisen could reasonably have feared that she had a preconceived idea on the question of his guilt when she would be called upon to pronounce, a few months later, as a member and president of the trial panel of the appeal court which, by its judgment of 27 April 2018, sentenced him to 15 years’ deprivation of liberty.
On 18 October 2023, the Swiss Federal Court overturned Erwin Sperisen’s conviction based on the ECtHR’s decision and sent the case back to the Geneva appeal Court.
Erwin Sperisen has been released pending the organization of a new trial in Geneva. Erwin Sperisen’s new trial started on 2 September 2024.
On 12 September 2024, a Geneva court has upheld on appeal the conviction of Erwin Sperisen, former head of the Guatemalan National Civil Police, as an accomplice in the extrajudicial executions of seven prisoners in 2006, and has sentenced him to 14 years’ imprisonment. An appeal to the Swiss Federal Court has already been announced by the defense.