25 Soldiers Convicted in Civilian Killings

A court convicted 25 soldiers on homicide charges in the first trial of troops accused of massacring civilians during Guatemala’s civil war. Prosecutors sought a murder conviction for the 1995 slayings of 11 war refugees in the village of Xaman, 40 miles north of Coban. That charge could carry the death penalty. But the three-judge panel delivered the less severe homicide verdict, with a sentence of up to five years in jail. The judges chose a verdict between murder and the charge of manslaughter to which the defendants admitted. The court said it could not find evidence of premeditation.