By Mike McDonald
GUATEMALA CITY, May 10 (Reuters) - The genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt drew to a close on Friday, and a panel of three judges began deliberations on a verdict that could be issued later in the day.
Rios Montt, 86, is charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for allegedly drawing up a counterinsurgency plan during his 1982-1983 rule that killed at least 1,771 members of the Maya Ixil indigenous group.
Prosecutors say Rios Montt turned a blind eye as soldiers used rape, torture and arson to try to rid Guatemala of leftist rebels during one of the bloodiest phases of the country's 1960-1996 civil war. He denies the allegations.
Prosecutors have asked for a 75-year jail term.
"The present trial is closed," Judge Yasmin Barrios, who has presided over the trial, told the court. She convened defense attorneys and prosecutors for a hearing later in the day, when a panel of three civilian judges that has been weighing evidence against Rios Montt could issue a verdict.
Under Guatemalan law, judges have up to 24 hours to issue a sentence after closing a case.
Thousands of Guatemalans who lost family and friends during the war are awaiting the verdict. The conflict claimed the lives of around 200,000 people, many of them ethnic Maya. A additional 45,000 people disappeared.
During the trial, which began on March 19, nearly 100 prosecution witnesses told of massacres, torture and rape by state forces.
Rios Montt, who has been under house arrest for more than a year, denied the charges in court on Thursday, saying he never ordered genocide and had no control over battlefield operations.
Defense attorneys, who have said they would appeal a conviction, argued that prosecution witnesses had no credibility, that specific ethnic groups were not targeted under Rios Montt's 17-month rule and that the war pitted belligerents of the same ethnicity against one another.
A judge who initially presided over pre-trial hearings cast a fresh shadow of doubt over the case on Friday when she confirmed a decision she had announced on April 18 to wind back proceedings to November 2011, and void all developments since then.
Prosecutors insist that decision is illegal and are preparing legal challenges to the ruling, while defense attorneys have argued that the decision is binding and that the trial should never have proceeded. (Editing by Simon Gardner and Jackie Frank)
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