GUATEMALA CITY (CNS) -- A retired army colonel convicted in the 1998 killing of Guatemalan Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera of Guatemala City was granted parole by a judge March 16.

Byron Lima Estrada, the retired colonel, was released less than half way through his 20-year prison sentence. He was convicted in 2001 of planning the murder of Bishop Gerardi, who was killed Apr. 24, 1998, two days after releasing a church report saying the military was responsible for most of the killings, disappearances and human rights violations during 36 years of civil war.

Lima Estrada's term was cut short for good behavior, his lawyer told reporters.

Church officials were quick to denounce the decision.

Nery Rodenas, director of the Office of Human Rights for the Archdiocese of Guatemala City, called the decision unacceptable. "He (Lima Estrada) did not even fulfill the requirements for parole under the law, ... including community service," he said.

Rodenas said the church would urge an appeal of the ruling.

Lima Estrada was one of four men convicted of the bishop's murder. His son, army Capt. Byron Lima Oliva and Father Mario Orantes Najera, an assistant priest at the church where Gerardi lived, preached and was killed, remain behind bars.

The fourth man, Jose Obdulio Villanueva, a sergeant in the military's elite presidential guard, was killed in a prison riot in 2003.

Lima Estrada was convicted of masterminding the killing. At his trial, prosecutors said he feared the bishop would testify about wartime killings.

Bishop Gerardi was long-time champion of the country's largely poor indigenous population. As the country's civil war -- which pitted peasant guerillas against the state -- concluded in 1996, Gerardi began an investigation into war crimes.

The investigation found the military and paramilitary death squads were responsible for about 90 percent of massacres.

During the war, Lima Estrada served as a counterinsurgency commander and head of a military intelligence unit.

The archdiocese will mark the 12th anniversary of Bishop Gerardi's death with the release of a movie titled "Gerardi."

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