45

 / The long road to justice

Pz

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concluded that Carías had provided his superiors with 
the necessary intelligence to carry out the massacre, had 
ordered the soldiers and patrolmen to surround the village 
and ensure that no one could leave Dos Erres alive, and had 
then attempted to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the 
villagers’ homes. 

Carías had been arrested on February 9, 2010 together with 
three soldiers: Daniel Martínez Hernández, Reyes Collin 
Gualip, and Manuel Pop Sun, who were aged, 23, 24 and 
28, respectively, when they served under the Kaibil troop 
that committed the massacre. Collin Gualip was the only one 
who continued to serve in the army, although not as a Kaibil 
soldier, when he was arrested, earning US$834 a month. 

The three protected witnesses: César García Tobar, Fabio 
Pinzón Jerez, and César Franco Ibáñez, testified via videolink 
from Mexico City. César Franco Ibáñez said that he had seen 
the three soldiers next to the well, beating men, women and 
children, before their bodies were thrown inside as if they 
were sacks of garbage. 

Fabio Pinzón Jerez described Manuel Pop Sun as “a very 
violent man” who had thrown a crying boy into the well 
and hours before had dragged a woman into the shrubs and 
raped her. The three Kaibil soldiers were given a 6,060 year 
prison sentence for murder and crimes against humanity, 
and Carías was given an extra six years for theft.

XVIII

February 2012. One year after the trial of Carlos Carías 
and the Kaibil soldiers Daniel Martínez Hernández, Reyes 
Collin Gualip, and Manuel Pop Sun.