Guatemalan court supports parole for bishop's killer

Guatemala City, Mar 16 (EFE).- A Guatemalan court agreed Tuesday to grant parole to retired army Col. Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, who is serving a 20-year sentence for the 1998 assassination of Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi.

The decision, announced to reporters by Judge Maria Antonieta Morales, is based on a law allowing a convict with good behavior to apply for parole midway through his or her sentence.

The Guatemalan Attorney General's Office has three working days to appeal Morales's ruling.

Gerardi, 75, was found beaten to death in the garage of the rectory where he lived just two days after a commission he headed released a report documenting 55,000 human rights violations during Guatemala's 1960-1996 civil war, most of them committed by the army.

Lima Estrada and his son, Capt. Byron Lima Oliva, were arrested in January 2000 and charged with carrying out the April, 26, 1998, murder.

Both men were convicted in a 2001 trial and sentenced to 20 years. Gerardi's assistant, the Rev. Mario Orantes, is likewise doing 20 years in prison as an accomplice to the slaying.

His parole application was turned down last August.

The church "roundly" rejects the notion of parole for Lima Estrada, the director of the human rights office at the Guatemala City Archdiocese, attorney Nery Rodenas, told Efe, adding that he will encourage prosecutors to appeal the ruling.

Given that Lima Estrada spent at least two years of his sentence in a military hospital, the former colonel could not have performed the community service required of aspiring parolees, according to Rodenas.

Another soldier convicted for Gerardi's murder, Obdulio Villanueva, was killed and beheaded in 2003 during a prison riot.

Rodenas said that 13 other military personnel remain under investigation for their possible role in the bishop's killing.