Louisa Reynolds /

Pz

P

46

For a few moments, Irma Valdez ceased to look at María 
Juliana Hernández Morán as a judge and looked at her 
woman to woman. Judge Valdez had just read a long and 
convoluted sentence full of intricate legal jargon that asked 
María Juliana if she was aware of the fact that she could face 
a prison sentence for perjury if she lied in court, but the old 
woman did not realize that she had to agree to this terms 
out loud before she could proceed with her story and had 
remained standing, nodding and lifting her right arm. 

The judge, with a soft, caressing voice, repeated the question, 
using simpler words: “Doña Juliana”, she said. “In court you 
can’t lie because if you lie you can go to prison. Could you 
please say, out loud whether you understand that?”

Like a frightened schoolgirl, María Juliana answered: “Yes 
ma’am, I won’t lie to you ma’am, everything I’m going to tell 
you is true”.

Satisfied that she had understood, Judge Valdez told her that 
she could sit down and asked a clerk to adjust María Juliana’s 
headphones, which were provided because she suffers from 
the hearing problems that often come with old age.

María Juliana was sitting three meters away from the man 
with the mole on his left cheek that had burst into her home 
on December 7, 1982, throwing tortillas, beans and milk to 
the floor and demanding to know where she had hidden the 
stolen rifles.  That soldier was Pedro Pimentel Ríos, accused 
of the murder of 201 people as well as crimes against 
humanity.  

When she saw his face she relived the moment when one of 
the soldiers had sunk her head in a bucket of water, and the 
loss of her son Ramiro.