The trial for the 2020 assassination in Guatemala of Frenchman Benoît Maria, director of the NGO Agronomists and Veterinarians Without Borders (AVSF), opens Monday in Quetzaltenango (west) with the hope for the families of understanding the motive of the crime. The trial is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. local time (2 p.m. GMT) in Quetzaltenango, the country’s second city, located 200 km west of the Guatemalan capital, Edgar Perez, lawyer at the Human Rights Law Firm, told AFP. , who represents the victim’s family.
Director of AVSF in Guatemala for supporting indigenous Mayan communities in agricultural development, Benoît Maria, who had worked for 20 years in the Central American country, was assassinated on August 10, 2020, at the age of 52, in driving his pick-up on a path towards the indigenous village of San Antonio Ilotenango, in the department of Quiché. French President Emmanuel Macron then praised the “humanist, fraternal and united commitment” of Benoît Maria, who, he added, “was cowardly assassinated”.
Only one man in the dock
Only one person, the indigenous Diego Tay, member of the municipal council for urban and rural development of the place where the crime was committed, will take his place in the dock. He will face Benoît Maria’s family: the mother of their children, Anna Isern Sabria, who lives in Guatemala, and his two brothers, Christophe and David Maria, who traveled from France with the general director of AVSF, Frédéric Apollin.
“The family of Benoît Maria hopes that the debates will shed light on the motives which led to this assassination,” declared to AFP Me Clémence Witt, who is following the case in France with her colleague Me Alexandre Luc- Walton, both lawyers at the Paris bar. The family of Benoît Maria and AVSF have become civil parties to the trial. The hypothesis of simple theft was ruled out because “the personal effects were found in the car” and the defendants’ dock is missing another person involved in the facts, who could be the alleged shooter against whom “an arrest warrant international” has already been issued which could give rise to a second trial, said Mr. Witt.
Extortion as the only motive?
In September 2021, during the arrest of Diego Tay, the prosecutor’s office mentioned extortion as a possible motive and hypothesized the refusal to pay a “right of passage”. According to Mr. Witt “the information gathered by the investigation revealed that the accused belonged to a family which formed a criminal organization and frequently demanded large sums of money from foreigners traveling in the locality”.
Local human rights organizations, however, recalled in a statement that the crime occurred just a week after the decision of the country’s highest court to order the state to return land to the Ixil indigenous people, supported by Benoît. Maria, in the municipality of Nebaj. “This point could be debated during the trial,” added Mr. Witt. Very involved with indigenous populations, the local director of AVSF participated in the creation in 2011 of Ixil University in Quiché, dedicated to the ancestral knowledge of indigenous peoples.
French justice is also competent to investigate. Alongside the investigations in Guatemala, a preliminary investigation was carried out in France and in February 2021 an investigating judge was appointed to the Paris Court of Cassation, the lawyers said. The debates which open on Monday are scheduled until the beginning of January.