Rios Montt denies he ordered genocide

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt is denying he ordered the extermination of Ixil Mayas as he testifies for the first time at his genocide trial.

The 86-year-old ex-general says he never ordered attacks against "a race."

He said Thursday he never did anything he is being accused of and that prosecutors haven't proven his participation in the killings.

Rios Montt seized power in a March 23, 1982, coup, and ruled until he was overthrown just over a year later.

Prosecutors say that while in power, Rios Montt was aware of, and thus responsible for, the slaughter of at least 1,771 Ixil Mayas in the towns of San Juan Cotzal, San Gaspar Chajul and Santa Maria Nebaj in Guatemala's western highlands.

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Canada's accused cannibal killer ordered to stand trial: CBC

(Reuters) - A Canadian man accused of murdering and dismembering a Chinese student, eating parts of the corpse and posting an online video of the crime will stand trial for first-degree murder, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Friday.

Montreal Judge Lori Renee Weitzman ruled there was enough evidence for the case against porn actor Luka Rocco Magnotta to go ahead, the CBC said.

Magnotta, 30, is accused of killing Jun Lin in May 2012, posting a video on the Internet of the stabbing death and defiling the body and eating parts of it. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, indignities to a body and publishing obscene materials.

Weitzman made her decision on Friday at the end of a pre-trial hearing that was subject to a publication ban. A trial date will be set on April 29 and the CBC quoted prosecutors as saying the trial would likely start next year.

Magnotta was arrested in Germany last June after an international manhunt. Lin's hands and feet were mailed to the offices of political parties in Ottawa and schools in Vancouver.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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