GENOCIDAL military dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who seized power in Guatemala through a coup in March 1982, has died aged 91, his lawyer announced at the weekend.

He presided over one of Guatemala's bloodiest periods when, backed by the administration of US president Ronald Reagan, he authorised troops to wage a brutal war to root out liberation movement fighters.

General Rios Montt, who was born into a conservative Catholic family, switched in the 1970s to a far-right California-based Pentecostalist sect in which he became a minister.