A former member of the Guatemalan army who is wanted for participating in the Dos Erres massacre nearly four decades ago, was removed Tuesday by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Miami.
Gilberto Jordan, 64, arrived in Guatemala escorted by ERO officers on board an ICE Air Operations charter removal flight. Upon their arrival Jordan was immediately turned over to Guatemalan law enforcement officials.
According to court documents, when Jordan applied to become a U.S. citizen in September 1996, he falsely denied that he had ever served in the military or committed any crimes for which he had not been arrested. In July 1999, when Jordan was interviewed by a naturalization examiner in connection with his naturalization application, he falsely swore under oath that the answers he had provided earlier on his application were true and correct. Jordan was sworn in as a U.S. citizen on Aug. 25, 1999.
In May 2010, Homeland Security Investigations in Palm Beach arrested Jordan for failing to disclose his prior military service and involvement in the killings on his citizenship application. The Department of Justice’s Human Rights Special Prosecutions Section prosecuted this case and in July 2019 Jordan plead guilty, admitting that he had been a Kaibil in the Guatemalan military who participated in the massacre at Dos Erres. Jordan also admitted that the first person he killed at Dos Erres was a baby, whom he murdered by throwing in the well. Jordan was sentenced in Sept. 2010 to 10 years in federal prison and had his citizenship revoked. HSI’s investigation in this case was featured in the film Finding Oscar.
A former Guatemalan sergeant who acknowledged participating in a massacre in 1982 during the country's civil war was deported Tuesday by U.S. authorities.
Gilberto Jordan, 64, is the third former Guatemalan soldier to be deported to face war crime charges for that massacre, said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a statement.
In the U.S., Jordan pleaded guilty to making false statements on his U.S. naturalization forms, hiding his service in the military and involvement in the killings. His U.S. citizenship was revoked, and he served 10 years in federal prison.
U.S. officials say the Guatemalan government accuses Jordan of being among some 20 members of an elite Guatemalan force known as the “kaibiles” who murdered 200 men, women and children in the hamlet of Dos Erres in 1982.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
The slaughter was part of an effort to eliminate communities supporting insurgent groups at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war. They were searching for missing rifles believed stolen by guerrillas, then decided to kill the villagers after some of the soldiers began raping the women.
Jordan acknowledged participating in the killings and personally throwing a young child down a well. He testified against a fellow former soldier in a California trial in 2013.
Jordan went to the U.S. illegally in 1985 and eventually settled in Boca Raton, Florida, where he worked at a country club as a cook before his arrest in 2010.
Local
The 1982 slaughter went unpunished for years — even after Guatemalan authorities issued 17 arrest warrants. Prosecutors say six former soldiers have now been convicted in the deaths.
The civil war from 1960 to 1996 left 200,000 people dead and 45,000 missing, a United Nations report says. The document says that army and paramilitary groups were responsible for at least 97% of the deaths, while the rest is attributed to the insurgent groups.
