Guatemalan drug lord gets 808 years in prison for 2008 bloodbath; 1 Dutch person killed

A court in Guatemala sentenced drug lord Rigoberto Danilo Morales to 808 years in prison on Monday for participating in the massacre of 15 Nicaraguans and one Dutchman in 2008, a judicial source said.

The court sentenced Morales to 50 years for each murder and an additional eight years for criminal cooperation. Morales, 37, was arrested in 2022 after being on the run for 13 years.

According to prosecutors, drug traffickers intercepted a bus traveling from Nicaragua to Guatemala in 2008 because they believed there were drugs on board. When the drug traffickers realized that this was not the case, they shot and killed the passengers and burned their bodies.

The Dutch victim was studying in Breda. According to Breda media, the student had just finished an internship in Nicaragua and was on his way to Guatemala to fly back to the Netherlands from that country.

Despite the long prison sentence imposed on Morales, Guatemalan law stipulates that a prisoner may not serve more than 50 years in prison.

Eight other people were also sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths in this case.