By Sofia Menchu

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) -A top Guatemalan court on Friday sentenced three former paramilitaries each to 40 years in prison after they were found guilty of raping six Indigenous women between 1981 and 1983, the bloodiest period of the Central American nation’s civil war.

The trial against the former members of the so-called Civil Self-Defense Patrol, armed groups recruited by the army, began four months ago.

“The soldiers arrived late at night, threw me onto the ground and raped me,” Paulina Ixpata, a Maya Achi woman, said during the trial, recounting how she was held for 25 days by the military patrol. “That’s how the whole night went.”

This is the second trial in the so-called Maya Achi case, and follows reports of sexual violence filed between 2011 and 2015 by 36 vic

See Full Page