The teenagers were found cut to pieces and burned on a road just north of Guatemala City in September. A Casa investigation established that Aguilar and Vasquez were targeted by local bus owners who had accused them of being involved in petty theft of passengers' belongings. A Toyota pickup carrying as many as a dozen men had menacingly cruised the boys hours before they died. Despite these allegations, the Vice Minister of the Interior and Director of the National Police dismissed the murders as the result of drug-turf wars. Casa pointed to the lack of progress on specific cases, calling such legal inertia tantamount to impunity.
Justice moves more swiftly for some than for others in Guatemala.
One of those named in Casa Alianza's report, Saracho de Umana, sued Casa and Bruce Harris. The plaintiff, as it happens, was the wife of the then-President of Guatemala's Supreme Court. Two days later, the Fourth Criminal Court set an initial hearing for October 13. The case is now pending. Always combative, Harris says he has no intention of ducking the suit.