33-years on, US invasion victim identified

 On the 33rd anniversary of the United States armed invasion of Panama, the Public Ministry reported that one of the remains exhumed in the Jardín de Paz cemetery is of a man reported missing on the night of December 19, 1989, that is, hours before the operation.

According to sources from the Superior Discharge Prosecutor’s Office, the person’s relatives said that they always suspected that he could have died as a result of the events of the invasion. The prosecutor’s office also reported that to determine the identity of this victim, judicial assistance was used before the Public Ministry of Guatemala. This is how the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of that country carried out a DNA test on the remains located by the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (Imelcf) in the Garden of Peace.

The Public Ministry asked Guatemala to carry out DNA tests on three skeletal remains located in a mass grave in the Jardín Paz, but only one of them obtained positive results. Now they are working on comparing the biological samples of other relatives of the rest of those who disappeared during the event to establish their identity.

The Forensic Medicine Institute (Imelcf) and the Public Ministry managed to recover 33 skeletal remains in the capital’s cemetery and another eight in Monte Esperanza, in Colón. They are in the classification and analysis phase to later submit them to DNA tests.

The director of Imelcf, José Vicente Pachar, announced that from mid-2023, they will be able to carry out DNA tests on the rest of the bones found during the exhumations since initially this effort could not be done due to a lack of resources for the purchase of reagents and equipment.