Article: Looking for Lucas

Ex-Guatemalan ruler sought by Spanish court

Madrid, Feb 21 (Reuters) - A Spanish court has asked Venezuela to extradite a dying former Guatemalan military ruler who is wanted in Spain over a deadly siege against the Spanish embassy, a court source said on Monday.

Romeo Lucas Garcia, suffering from Alzheimer's disease in Venezuela, was president in 1980 when Guatemalan forces stormed the Spanish embassy in search of leftist insurgents.

Thirty-seven people died in the assault. Three survived.

Spanish High Court Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska issued the extradition request last week. Court officials have yet to hear from Venezuela, said the source, who knows the case but asked not to be named because he is not authorized to talk about it.

Around 10 others are charged in the case including Guatemala's former interior minister Donaldo Alvarez Ruiz, who has been sought for extradition from Mexico.

The Spanish High Court originally took up the case as an investigation into genocide resulting from a complaint lodged by Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, whose father died in the embassy siege.

The Supreme Court then said the High Court had no right to investigate genocide but has allowed part of the case to go ahead because Spanish victims were involved.

Guatemalan security forces attacked the embassy on Jan. 31, 1980, in search of suspected leftist insurgents after a group of Mayan Indians had taken refuge inside.

The attack was part of a scorched-earth counter-insurgency carried out by a series of military regimes for decades until civilian rule in the Central American country was re-established in 1986.

A Guatemalan truth commission blamed the military for more than 90 percent of all murders, disappearances and other human rights abuses during the war, which ended in 1996.

An estimated 200,000 people were killed or disappeared in the conflict.