Sperisen case in Switzerland a ‘legacy of the dirty war in Guatemala’ 

Dual Swiss-Guatemalan national Erwin Sperisen is appearing in court for the fourth time in Geneva in a dispute over the facts of seven murders that took place in a Guatemalan prison in 2006. What is at stake in this highly unusual case in Switzerland? In Switzerland, 54-year-old Sperisen continues to maintain his innocence and rail against the prosecution. The former head of the Guatemalan national police force insists that biased left-wing magistrates are handling his case in Geneva on the basis of manufactured evidence. The allegations of the accused are now front and centre again, thanks to the announcement of a libel suit in Geneva against the prosecutor in the case, Yves Bertossa. This time it is not Sperisen himself who is bringing the legal action but three former government officials in Guatemala: Alejandro Giammattei, a former head of the Guatemalan prison system, Carlos Vielmann, a former interior minister, and Javier Figueroa, who was Sperisen’s second-in-command in the ...