In 1992, Efrain Bamaca Velásquez, a Mayan resistance leader also known as Comandante Everardo, vanished during a brief combat in Guatemala. The Guatemalan army reported that he had died in the skirmish, but his wife, U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury, later learned from an eye witness that he had in fact been captured alive and was being subjected to severe torture in a nearby military base.
Because of his high rank and unusual level of information, army
officials were seeking to break him psychologically through long term
torture. The goal was not to kill him, but to force him to work as a
secret informant for the army's intelligence division. In order to
avoid international outcry, military officials had falsely claimed his
death in combat. The witness also reported more than thirty other
secretly detained prisoners of war.
After several hunger strikes, repeated lies by U.S. officials, and many Freedom of Information Act requests, Ms. Harbury has assembled cases against the Guatemalan military and U.S. officials.
The case against the Guatemalan military received a full international trial in the Inter-American Court in San José, Costa Rica in 1998. A final judgement is still pending; a Court decision is hoped for this year. In October, 1999, the Inter-American Court sent final transcripts to Jennifer Harbury for review. She and her lawyers filed their final 85-page brief in response. As of now, all parties are awaiting the final decision of the court on the responsibility of the Guatemalan government for the murder of Efrain Bamaca Velásquez.
A federal civil rights case has also been filed against a number of United States officials in the State Department, White House, and the CIA.