
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 13, 1995                   TAG: 9504130079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. JUDGE ORDERS EX-GENERAL TO PAY

A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday ordered an ex-Guatemala general to pay $47.5 million to an American nun who was tortured and eight Guatemalans who were terrorized by the Guatemalan military in the 1980s.

The retired general, Hector Gramajo, is a conservative candidate for president who says he had close contacts with the CIA when he was defense minister from 1986 to 1990.

Gramajo led a scorched-earth military campaign in the 1980s in which tens of thousands of Guatemalan villagers were killed. As defense minister, human rights groups say, he presided over a system of military repression that included political killings, illegal detentions and domestic spying by military intelligence officers.

``Forty-seven million dollars?'' Gramajo said in a telephone interview from Guatemala City. ``I don't have 47 million centavos!''

Calling the case ``a remnant of the cold war,'' he said: ``I was a public servant. I defended my country. I did nothing wrong.''

But U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Woodlock ruled that ``The evidence suggests that Gramajo devised and directed the implementation of an indiscriminate campaign of terror against civilians,'' including the nine plaintiffs, said the judge.

He ordered the former general to pay damages ranging from $1 million to $9 million to each of the eight Guatemalans and $5 million to the American nun, Sister Dianna Ortiz.

by CNB