February 2007 Guatemalan congressmen killings

On February 19, 2007, three members of the ARENA Party of El Salvador — Eduardo D'Aubuisson, William Pichinte and José Ramón González, as well as their driver, Gerardo Ramírez — were found murdered near Guatemala City, Guatemala. Four police detectives were arrested and charged with the murder; within three days of their arrest, the four were murdered in a maximum-security prison cell. Several prosecutors investigating the deaths have also been murdered.

The three men were members of ARENA, the right-wing ruling party of El Salvador. Eduardo D'Aubuisson was the son of Roberto D'Aubuisson, the founder of ARENA and the leader of numerous Salvadoran death squads during that country's 1980-1992 civil war.

Guatemala has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America and is frequented by drug traffickers traveling from Colombia, through Mexico and to the United States.

The three men were on their way to Guatemala City to attend the Central American Parliament on February 19, 2007. Their Toyota Land Cruiser, part of a four-car motorcade heading to the capital, pulled out of the convoy and onto a remote road at El Jocotillo, about 20 miles southeast of Guatemala City.

The next day, the bodies of the three congressmen and their driver were found in their charred and burnt vehicle. There were indications they had been tortured before death.

Soon after the murders, four Guatemalan policemen were arrested. They had been tracked by a GPS system embedded in a police vehicle that was at the scene of the killings. They were formally charged in connection with the case on February 22; all four suspects were then secretly moved to the maximum-security prison El Boqueron, 40 miles east of Guatemala City.

On February 25, the four men were murdered inside their prison cell. The killings were followed by a prison riot; the warden and some guards were taken hostage. Initial reports suggested that the gunmen entered the prison disguised as visitors. The national police, however, stated that it was more likely that the gunmen came from inside the prison, since it would have been almost impossible for them to have gotten past the three security perimeters thrown around the building: the prison guards, the national police, and the army. Twenty men at the prison were arrested, including the warden and many guards.

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