Antigua, Guatemala ? They met during a trade mission, and despite controversy over their engagement, U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois and the outspoken daughter of former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt tied the knot Saturday in a civil ceremony.

About 300 people — including Rios Montt — attended the wedding of the Republican congressman and Zury Rios Sosa, a 36-year-old Guatemalan senator. Security was tight as the two exchanged wedding vows at a mansion belonging to the former dictator.

Rios Sosa wore a cream-colored, strapless dress, Weller a black suit. U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala John Hamilton also attended.

A large security team watched the home, which also was encircled by a high stone wall topped by electrified wire, in this colonial mountain town popular with tourists.

Weller’s opponents criticized the engagement because Rios Montt, a retired general who seized control of Guatemala for 18 months in 1982-83, is accused of leading one of the bloodiest campaigns in the nation’s 36-year civil war, which killed 200,000 people.

Rios Montt, twice elected president of the legislature after his dictatorship, is under house arrest in the capital, Guatemala City.

He faces charges of organizing a violent and chaotic protest that saw thousands of his supporters overrun the capital in July 2003, decrying a court order blocking him from running for president.

The former dictator attended his daughter’s wedding after obtaining permission to travel outside Guatemala City.

Rios Sosa, who has been married three times before, will move to the United States and live with her husband. But she says she will not give up her seat in the senate.