Judge approves bid to revoke Canadian citizenship over man’s hidden role in massacre

OTTAWA — A judge has approved a federal bid to revoke the Canadian citizenship of a former member of the Guatemalan military who took part in the murder of villagers.

In a ruling Thursday, Federal Court Justice Roger Lafrenière said Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes deceived Canadian immigration officials throughout the permanent residence application process and obtained his Canadian citizenship by fraud.

The federal government went to court in 2017 seeking declarations that would effectively strip Sosa of his citizenship and make him inadmissible to Canada.

Lafrenière granted both declarations.

A bloody, decades-long conflict between Guatemalan government forces and guerrillas intensified in the early 1980s.

Canada said Sosa, now 67, was a senior member of a military special forces group that led a mission to the Guatemalan village of Las Dos Erres in December 1982 to interrogate residents about some missing rifles.

Lafrenière found that Sosa murdered villagers by throwing a grenade into a well holding people, and that he abetted the killing of others by his subordinates.

Upon arriving at the village, the soldiers kicked open the doors of the shanty houses and dragged residents from their homes, the ruling says. Men and women were questioned and beaten.

At one point, the soldiers were told that the mission had changed, and they were ordered by their superiors to kill everyone in the village, Lafrenière wrote.

“The soldiers began to bring people to the village’s dry water well, starting with infants, followed by women and children,” the ruling says. “What followed was the methodical and horrendous murder of civilians. The first victim was a two- or three-month-old baby who was thrown alive into the well. Young children were held by their feet and bashed against walls or trees.”

When the well was almost full, some people who were still alive tried to lift themselves up to get out, while others called for help or prayed to God, Lafrenière wrote.

“Mr. Sosa, who had been supervising the killings, fired his gun into the well to silence a man who was pleading for a quick death,” the ruling says.

“The uncontradicted evidence is that Mr Sosa threw a grenade into the well while persons were alive inside. After the grenade exploded, the screams of the persons in the well went silent.”

Sosa did not attend the Federal Court trial or attempt to join by video conference.

In documents filed with the court, Sosa said he was not even in the village of Las Dos Erres when the events took place.

He painted himself as an upstanding instructor at a military training school during the period in question, working with local communities in Guatemala to build good relations.

The judge rejected Sosa’s claim as absurd, saying the documentary and oral evidence clearly proves he was one of the officers in command of the operation.

Sosa left Guatemala for California in 1985. After being denied asylum in the U.S., he visited the Canadian consulate in San Francisco to seek haven in Canada. He was granted refugee status, later becoming a permanent resident and citizen of Canada.

The federal government argued Sosa failed to disclose details of his military involvement that would have made him inadmissible to Canada.

In his court filing, Sosa insisted he disclosed his military background and “had nothing to hide.”

Sosa married an American woman and became a U.S. citizen in September 2008.

In 2010, the United States suspected he had committed immigration fraud by concealing his past. He was arrested the following year in Lethbridge, Alta., while visiting family.

In ordering his extradition to the U.S. to face trial, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench said the evidence established that Sosa was one of the commanding officers who decided to murder the villagers in Guatemala and that he actively participated in the killings.

Sosa was sentenced to prison for immigration fraud in the United States. His U.S. citizenship was revoked in 2014.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 5, 2026.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press