A few months after Pastor Hugo Rolando Gómez Osorio completed two years in custody at the Adelanto Detention Center, Pastor Leonor Gómez raised her voice to say that her husband is innocent of the disappearance of a student and union leader during the Guatemalan military dictatorship.
“My husband is just a scapegoat used by Mario Polanco, husband of the deputy of the Guatemalan Congress Nineth Montenegro to collect an economic compensation for millions of quetzals that the government gives. ”
The pastor explains that Montenegro was the wife of Edgar Fernando García, the student and worker in a glass factory kidnapped and disappeared in Guatemala in 1984.
Along with three other people, Pastor Gómez is accused of the disappearance.
“At that time my husband was a member of the National Police of Guatemala, but they had him in the offices doing administrative paperwork.”
The nightmare for Pastor Gómez’s family began in 2009 when a relative called them from Guatemala to tell them to flee the United States because an extradition order and a red card had been issued to arrest him. “Why am I going to run away, if I haven’t done anything”, he remembers what the pastor told him.
“We saw in the newspapers that they were looking for Hugo Rolando Gómez, director of the Fourth Corps of the Guatemalan National Police, but at the time of the unionist’s disappearance, that position was held by Jorge Alberto Gómez, not my husband. ”
The shepherdess began to move, trying to clear her partner’s name. “I approached Kate Doyle, Latin American policy analyst at the National Security Archive, who collaborated in the investigation that involved my husband.”
She says that she faced her and asked her to clarify that her husband had nothing to do with the kidnapping and disappearance of the student. “When I spoke to her the first time and told her that she was accusing an innocent man, she dedicated herself to covering her face with her hands. I told him, you know he’s innocent. She promised to help me. We maintained communication from 2012 to 2015. After that, he never answered me again. Nor does he answer my lawyers. ”
Detained by ICE
Shortly before 9 a.m. on Friday 16 August 2019 in the city of Hawthorne in Los Angeles County, while on his way to work in the garden, Pastor Gómez was detained two blocks from his home by agents of the Immigration and Customs Service ( ICE). Since then, he has been under arrest by ICE in Advance.
The pastor’s arrest was in response to an active red card, made public by the government. from Guatemala and sent to Interpol to arrest him.
Notifications or red tokens are issued to capture wanted fugitives either to are prosecuted; or to serve a sentence in their countries of origin.
“ICE He tells us that they will not release him until the Guatemalan government eliminates the red card, ”he says.
Pastor Leonor and her husband Pastor Hugo Rolando left Guatemala in 1987 to settle in Los Angeles. They have been married for 61 years and are parents of three daughters and grandparents of two grandchildren.
“We obtained residency in the United States in 2003, and we came and went to Guatemala as if nothing had happened. We had nothing to fear. ”
In 2003 – 2009, When the pastor applied for citizenship, they told him that his papers had been required for investigation and they never called him again. “When ICE stopped him, they brought the photo that they took of my husband for citizenship. They identified him with that ”.
Letter from Advance
In an open letter, the pastor of 61 years, he says that from the moment he entered the detention center, he began to experience psychological abuse from the officers in charge of ensuring order and security under the administration of the GEO company.
“They gave me racist and discriminatory treatment. They classified me as a high-risk criminal. ”
He assures that stress, anxiety and depression, caused by separation from his wife, daughters and grandchildren, do not leave him alone. “ I have problems with my nervous system, I do not sleep well, I suffer from vitiligo in the armpits and frequent headaches “.
His health has been severely affected to the extent that two tumors have grown, one on the back of his neck and the other next to his ear. “The doctor told me that they were made of fat and that they would take me to a place outside of Adelanto to be examined, but I refused because I would be transported with my hands and feet chained, and when I returned they would quarantine me from 14 to 21 days. I didn’t want to because I’ve been alone for a long time. ”
In advance, he was also diagnosed with prediabetes, high cholesterol and triglycerides. “The doctor indicated that later on he would need a colonoscopy exam.”
He adds that in advance, the diet is not healthy. “Recently the soy meat they gave us for dinner, it had a bad smell. Before I knew it, I had already eaten two bites of it. I couldn’t sleep because of my stomach pain. This happens frequently. ”
Pastor Gomez says that after 20 months of being confined in Adelanto, not only has he had physical and emotional health problems but the abuse has led him to have suicidal thoughts.
“My wife and daughters have not come to see me for more than a year because there are no visits due to the COVID pandemic – 16. The treatment received in this place is inhumane, my human rights have been violated. ”
His wife has fought hard for 12 years for prove that the pastor had no involvement whatsoever in the disappearance of the union member; and after his arrest, he has not stopped his efforts to be released to return home. “He is an innocent man, and I will not rest until I prove it, even if it costs me my life.”
He adds that the lawyer Jaime Ernesto Hernández Zamora, Guatemalan criminal lawyer and doctor of criminal sciences, has also stated that the crime of forced disappearance of which the pastor is accused, occurred in 1984, already prescribed in accordance with the article 107 of the Penal Code.
But he also announced that after an analysis objective of the case of his client, there is no real basis that suggests that he had a criminal participation in the act of which he is accused.
Pastor Gómez opened a page on Facebook where he makes daily complaints about the case of Pastor Hugo Rolando Gómez: https://www.facebook.com/ THE TRUTH OF BEHIND