In May 1985, a Guatemalan Army lieutenant named Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes deserted, flew to San Francisco and requested political asylum, asserting that leftist guerrillas in his war-torn homeland were gunning for him.
The 27-year-old officer described his combat exploits in his application for asylum. He said he had served as an instructor in the elite "Kaibil" commandos and as a "commanding officer" in Guatemala's bloody civil war.
"It is impossible for me and family to return as we have been sentenced to death due to my participation in the various combats in the conflictive area," he wrote in his asylum application.
Immigration officials rejected his request, but Sosa sought asylum in Canada and became a citizen there. He eventually returned to the United States and became a U.S. citizen as well.
Recently, Sosa's odyssey took an extraordinary turn. The self-proclaimed refugee stands accused of committing mass murder in uniform. Last month, Canada extradited him to Los Angeles to face trial on charges related to one of the worst war crimes in the recent history of the Americas. He had fled north after prosecutors charged him with lying on immigration forms to conceal his alleged role in the slaughter of more than 250 people in the village of Dos Erres in 1982.
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