MEXICO, April 5 - RAPSI. Retired officer Hugo Leonardo Reyes alleged that President Otto Perez was involved in civil war massacres in his testimony at the genocide trial of ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt on Thursday.

Montt is charged with the mass murder of over 1,700 Mayans in the northern department of El Quiche during his leadership in 1982-1983. The Guatemalan leadership then pursued a scorched earth policy with regard to Mayan villages which could have supported the leftist militants.

The witness said via videoconference that that the army looted and burnt Mayan villages and killed the residents on orders from "Major Tito," known as Otto Perez Molina. Reyes was allowed to speak via videoconference instead of appearing in person, since he is in the Witness Protection Program.

Presidential spokesman Francisco Cuevas denied the allegations, adding that President Perez was never involved in these acts.