Guatemala court orders psych exam for ailing ex-despot

A Guatemalan court Tuesday ordered ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt, charged with genocide during the country's brutal civil war, to undergo psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he is fit for trial.

The 89-year-old former general, who ruled the Central American country from 1982 to 1983, is accused of ordering the army to massacre Ixil Maya indigenous people in northern Guatemala.

More than 1,700 Indians were killed in 15 massacres, as the government sought to stamp out rural support for leftist guerrilla groups.

But a medical examiner's report last month found Rios Montt mentally incompetent to stand trial, saying he cannot understand the charges against him.

After prosecutors challenged the report, the court ordered Rios Montt be taken immediately for 11 days of tests at a private psychiatric facility.

It was a small victory for the former dictator's lawyers, who fought his transfer to a public hospital on grounds that it lacked adequate security.

The court will reconvene on August 18 to examine the results of the evaluation, said presiding judge Maria Eugenia Castellanos.

The case comes after Guatemala's Constitutional Court threw out Rios Montt's 2013 conviction for genocide and war crimes in the massacres on procedural grounds, ordering a retrial.

He was sentenced to 80 years in prison in the original trial.