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40(9)(i) Carlos Augusto Molina Palma, the victim’s father, was an
opponent of the military regime installed in 1954; consequently, he
was detained, physically abused and exiled from Guatemala on several
occasions from 1955 to 1960. In 1966, Carlos Augusto reported the
forced disappearance of his brother, Alfredo, publicly;
40(9)(ii) Ana Lucrecia Molina Theissen, the victim’s sister, was a high
school leader. Subsequently, as a teacher, she joined trade union
organizations and was a member of the governing council of the
Frente Nacional Magisterial [National Teachers’ Front], an organization
she represented on the Comité Nacional de Unidad Sindical [National
Trade Union Unity Committee] from 1976 to 1978. As a university
student she occasionally took part in activities promoted by the
FRENTE group;
40(9)(iii) María Eugenia Molina Theissen, the victim’s sister, formed
part of the administrative personnel of the Universidad de San Carlos.
She married Héctor Alvarado Chuga, a former high school leader, who
also studied in this university and worked as a professor in the
university’s Escuela de Orientación Sindical [School for studies on
trade unions];
40(9)(iv) Emma Guadalupe Molina Theissen, the victim’s sister, was a
member of “Juventud Patriótica del Trabajo,” which was attached to
the Guatemalan Labor Party (PGT). Julio César del Valle Cóbar, her
companion, was a leader of the FRENTE student party at the
Universidad de San Carlos, in Guatemala City, at the end of the 1970s
and the beginning of the 1980s. On March 19, 1976, both of them
were detained when they were conducting a census of one of the
urban settlements established after the earthquake of February 4,
1976. During this incident, one of the students who formed part of the
group, Eduardo Alvarado Chuga, Héctor Alvarado’s brother, was killed,
and a young woman was paralyzed after being shot in the back. The
authors of these acts, transit police, remained unpunished. Emma
Guadalupe and Julio César were accused of “subversion” and
subsequently acquitted; her case was heard by the minor’s court,
because she was just under 15 years of age. While she was retained
by her captors, before being handed over to the competent judicial
authorities, she was raped and tortured for several days. As of this
time, it is believed that military intelligence opened a dossier on both
of them. On March 22, 1980, Julio César del Valle Cóbar was found
tortured and shot in his car. According to reports, the “para-military
forces” were responsible for this act. As a result of her companion’s
assassination, Emma Guadalupe had to go into hiding and flee
Guatemala City.
On September 27, 1981, Emma Guadalupe was detained by members
of the armed forces, who kept her in illegal and clandestine custody for
nine days in the installations of the “Manuel Lisandro Barillas” Military
Barracks in Quetzaltenango.
During her detention, she was
maintained incommunicado, blindfolded and handcuffed to the leg of a
bunk bed. She was interrogated constantly and violently, suffering
many kinds of torture: repeated rape by members of the army, blows,
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