10 of 312 DOCUMENTS

The Washington Post

August 16, 1998, Sunday, Final Edition

SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A39

LENGTH: 807 words

HEADLINE: Suspicions in Guatemalan Murder Focus on Priest, Military

BYLINE: Terri Shaw, Washington Post Foreign Service

DATELINE: GUATEMALA CITY

BODY:

When Archbishop Juan Jose Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in the garage of his rectory on April 26 here, the culprit seemed obvious.

Two days earlier, Gerardi had delivered an eloquent speech at the national cathedral presenting the results of an exhaustive church-sponsored investigation that blamed the Guatemalan army for thousands of abuses during more than 30 years of guerrilla warfare.

In a nation where political murders had been frequent for decades, it seemed logical to conclude that members of one of the army's intelligence or counterinsurgency units were responsible. And in a nation where members of the military and police are rarely, if ever, prosecuted for such crimes, it seemed logical to wonder if anyone would ever be convicted of the crime.

Now, almost four months later, the investigation of the bishop's murder has taken more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel. And, in the atmosphere of freedom that has followed the end of the fighting, the Guatemalan media have had a field day, publishing leaks and speculation every day with a new brazen openness.

Compounding the mystery, on July 14 an Italian priest who was chaplain of the army was attacked gangland-style. The priest, Sebastiano Crestani, survived his gunshot wounds. Three weeks later, his family took him out of the intensive care unit, despite his doctors' protests, and sent him to Italy, provoking new speculation that Crestani might have been attacked because he knew something about the Gerardi case.

The bishop's death was a heavy blow for Guatemalans, and thousands lined up to pay their respects when his body lay in state in Guatemala City's Metropolitan Cathedral. The Catholic Church is one of the most important institutions in the country, and Gerardi had a high profile as director of the church's probe of abuses by the military and the guerrillas during more than three decades of strife. Jean Arnault, head of the U.N. mission overseeing the reforms agreed to when the fighting ended, said the bishop's assassination has "shaken the certainty" that the peace process was unstoppable.

But the case has become more and more murky. The prosecutor assigned to the case arrested two indigents. Then, on July 22, dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police officers cordoned off the area around the bishop's San Sebastian Church and detained a priest who lived with the bishop, his cook and the priest's aged and infirm German shepherd, Baloo. Only the priest, the Rev. Mario Orantes, who found the bishop's body, and the dog -- suspected of biting the bishop -- remain in custody.

The arrests followed a visit to Guatemala by FBI experts who examined the crime scene about a week after the murder and took evidence back to Washington for testing, according to a diplomat and Guatemalan press reports.

The Guatemalan prosecutor also sent photographs of the bishop's body to Complutense University in Madrid, where criminologists concluded that some of the marks on the bishop's body had been made by a dog, apparently Baloo.

The church's human rights office greeted the arrest of Orantes with surprising silence. This led many Guatemalans to suspect that the church believed that Orantes, rumored to be a sexually active homosexual, was involved in the bishop's death.

The director of the human rights office, Ronalth Ochaeta, told a reporter, "Ever since the time of Jesus, there have been Judases," a comment taken to be directed at Orantes. Since then, church officials have expressed support for the priest, but also say they want a thorough investigation of every lead.

The military has not escaped attention. The human rights office and other sources said there was evidence pointing to two unnamed military officers in connection with the crime. On Aug. 7 the newspaper Prensa Libre published the names of the two men, retired Col. Byron Lima and his son, Capt. Byron Lima Oliva, who at the time of Gerardi's death was working for the presidential guard unit, which in the past had functioned as a secret police. Four days after the murder, Capt. Lima was sent to Cyprus to serve with a U.N. unit there, Prensa Libre reported.

Every Guatemalan seems to have a favorite theory about the crime. Some point to traces of blood found in Orantes's bedroom and on the cook's clothing. Others place importance on inconsistencies in the priest's account of how he found the body and when he reported the crime. Others mention reports from the prosecutor's office that a car was seen near the bishop's house the night of the crime with a license plate registered to a military unit and that a telephone call was made from the house to the infamous presidential guard unit.

The archdiocese has agreed to have the bishop's body, which is buried in the cathedral's crypt, exhumed for further testing.

LOAD-DATE: August 16, 1998