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Guatemala issued new arrest warrants against people involved in the fight against corruption, including the current Colombian Defense Minister, Iván Velásquez, for alleged illegal actions when he was part of a UN anti-mafia mission in the Central American country. An arrest warrant was also issued for former Attorney General Thelma Aldana, currently in exile in the United States. The case has sparked diplomatic tension with Bogota and condemnation from Washington.
“It is a true tragedy that 30 anti-corruption justice operators today find ourselves in exile. More than a dozen of my colleagues are currently on trial in Guatemala for leading anti-corruption investigations such as the Odebrecht case, which is a case in which a bribery scheme for more than 20 million dollars was discovered,” Juan told RFI. Francisco Sandoval, former head of the FECI in exile in the United States and on whom an arrest warrant has been issued for 14 months.
The Odebrecht construction company is known to have been part of a corruption scheme in which it paid illegal commissions in 12 countries, including Guatemala, in exchange for public construction projects.
“Here what is happening is justice in reverse, the Public Ministry is articulating with the government and corrupt politicians with the purpose of undermining the efforts that were made together with the CICIG against corruption and impunity in Guatemala. They try to build a new narrative in which the justice operators who discovered these serious acts of corruption are stigmatized or criminalized before society and thus delegitimize the efforts that were made”, denounced the former Special Prosecutor Against Impunity of Guatemala.
For her part, former Attorney General Thelma Aldana did not want to give an interview to RFI and limited herself to denouncing that they are being criminalized. “Iván Velásquez and I with our teams did the job correctly and in accordance with the law. We are being criminalized by the Public Ministry of Consuelo Porras and Curruchiche, both designated on the Engel List as corrupt, ”Aldana said that she has been in exile for four years and under which an arrest warrant weighs.
The current Special Prosecutor Against Impunity in Guatemala, Rafael Curruchiche, accuses Iván Velásquez and other former justice officials of endorsing, allegedly irregularly, the “effective collaborator” agreements of three former Brazilian executives in the construction company bribery case Odebrecht in Guatemala.
Diplomatic tension between Colombia and Guatemala
Colombia and Guatemala respectively called their ambassadors for consultations. The Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, showed his unconditional support to his minister. “I will never accept the arrest warrant for our minister Velásquez. He has shown that he fights against corruption and we will not allow corruption to persecute him, ”Petro said from his Twitter account.
Velásquez was appointed in 2013 to chair the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICG), a United Nations body that brought three former presidents to trial, including General Otto Pérez Molina, and accused more than 1,500 people of corruption, among them government officials, judges and businessmen.
After years of work, Velásquez had to leave Guatemala due to tensions with President Jimmy Morales, who ended the commission’s mandate after 12 active years.
The US condemns the attitude of the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office
The Under Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere of the United States, Brian Nichols, expressed his concern without giving names. “Such actions undermine the #RuleOfLaw and trust in the Guatemalan justice system,” he added Tuesday on Twitter.
