Wife of ex-Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt dies at 89

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — A lawyer for the family says the wife of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt has died at age 89.

Attorney Jaime Hernandez said Teresa Sosa de Rios had been sick and died of natural causes Monday. He said he'd "seen her on Friday, she was sick, she had diabetes and she was already very old."

Her death comes exactly six months after her husband died of a heart attack at 91.

Although Sosa did not appear often in public, in 1995 she tried to register as a presidential candidate, but was blocked by electoral authorities based on a constitutional prohibition on relatives of strongmen or de facto presidents registering.

Rios Montt seized power in a 1982 coup and presided over one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala's civil war.