Immigrant admits lying about massacre

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., July 7 (UPI) -- A former Guatemalan soldier who admitted throwing a baby down a well during a 1982 massacre pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying on U.S. immigration forms.

At a hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Gilberto Jordan, 54, of Delray Beach said he lied about his participation in the killings at Dos Erres, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Jordan faces up to 10 years in prison. U.S. District Judge William Zloch ordered him imprisoned immediately.

Under questioning, Jordan admitted that in 1982 he was a member of a special forces group known as the Kaibiles. He said that after guerrillas ambushed a military convoy, he was part of a unit sent to Dos Erres.

According to court documents, the unit killed men, women and children in the village, many of them by hitting them on the head with a sledgehammer. Investigators later found 162 skeletons in the village well.

Jordan said his first victim was a baby thrown into the well alive.

Jordan applied for U.S. citizenship in 1996, saying on his application he had not served in the army or committed any crimes. He repeated those statements under oath and was sworn in as a citizen in 1999.