The Christian Science Monitor

After 25 years in US, alleged war criminal may finally face justice at home

When immigration agents arrived last month at a modest, three-story house here to detain an undocumented Guatemalan man, it was no ordinary arrest.

By most measures, Juan Samayoa Cabrera is a “bad hombre,” the declared target of President Trump’s effort to deport as many unauthorized immigrants as possible, in contrast to the Obama administration’s prioritization of those with criminal records.

The crimes that Mr. Samayoa allegedly committed didn’t take place in this New England city, where he’s lived for the past quarter-century, mostly in plain sight of US authorities. Samayoa was a paramilitary commander during the bloodiest phase of Guatemala’s civil war, when tens of thousands of civilians died at the hands of government forces. Public prosecutors in Guatemala want him to stand trial there for

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