Paraguay justice minister sacked for letting guerrilla leader’s body into prison

ASUNCION: Paraguay's President Mario Abdo Benitez on Tuesday sacked his justice minister and the director of a women's prison for allowing a coffin with the body of a slain guerrilla leader into a jail where the man's sister is serving a sentence.

“The Minister of Justice (Edgar Taboada) and the director of the Good Shepherd prison were dismissed,“ the president’s office said in a statement.

Osvaldo Villalba, leader of the Marxist-Leninist Paraguayan People's Army (EPP) was killed Sunday by the military in the northeast of the country, along with two comrades, police said.

His coffin was taken to the women's prison by his relatives so that his convicted sister -- a co-founder of the EPP -- could say goodbye.

The family “arrived unexpectedly at the women’s prison, (the coffin) came as a surprise,“ said the justice minister a couple of hours before being removed.

The minister explained that the remains of the 39-year-old Villalba, who had a $150,000 reward on his head, had already been delivered to a cemetery next to the prison and that his relatives then came and took it to the prison itself.

Accompanied by dozens of anti-riot police, it was allowed into the prison where his sister Carmen, 50, was given five minutes to say her final farewells.

She is one year into an 18-year sentence for kidnapping the daughter of former President Raul Cubas in 2004.

The justice ministry allowed the entry “for humanitarian reasons,“ said Taboada, noting that in 2010, the remains of a deceased son of a prisoner were also taken to a jail before burial.

The EPP has been blamed for the killings of some 80 soldiers, police and civilians, and the kidnapping of over a dozen people. - AFP

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