Guatemala ex-dictator to go back on trial

Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt will go back on trial after the nation's highest court threw out his genocide and war crimes conviction in the latest twist in complex proceedings.
Rios Montt went on trial in March on charges of ordering the massacre of Maya Indians in the 1980s as part of a scorched earth policy in the most brutal chapter of a 36-year civil war that ended in 1996.
He was convicted on May 10 of genocide and war crimes in a historic ruling and got an 80-year sentence. However, yesterday, the Constitutional Court struck down the conviction and the sentence.

The ruling, by three votes to two, annulled all proceedings that took place after the trial was ordered temporarily halted on April 19, due to a technicality.
Although the conviction was overturned, most of the trial and testimony was left intact. Now, the trial goes back to the point at which it stood on April 19. The judges in the new phase will be the same as in the original trial. No date for the new phase was set.
The Constitutional Court upheld defense lawyers' claim of a procedural error.
It said this error occurred when the court that ultimately convicted the former dictator went ahead with the trial on April 30 without considering a motion filed by the defense with an appeals court.

Rios Montt was rushed to a military hospital a week ago after fainting in court before a hearing on reparations for victims, his lawyer said.