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The governments of Guatemala and Colombia called their respective ambassadors for consultation following a Guatemalan investigation that accuses Iván Velásquez, Colombian Defense Minister, of corruption while he was serving in the Central American country as director of the International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG). . Bogotá defended Velásquez and Guatemala City rejected that a judicial problem was elevated to “political”.
It is already a full-blown diplomatic clash. Both Colombia and Guatemala have called their ambassadors for consultation, a situation that in these spheres is usually considered the prelude to a break in relations between two countries.
At the center of the debate is the Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez, a 67-year-old politician who had served in Guatemala as director of the International Commission Against Impunity (Cicig) between 2013 and 2017.
According to an investigation by the Public Ministry of the Central American country led by prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, Velásquez committed “illegal and abusive” acts while leading the entity by approving abnormal cooperation agreements, according to him, with two Brazilian Odebrecht executives in 2017.
The news, which was released on January 16, aroused an immediate reaction from the Colombian government. President Gustavo Petro closed his defense around the minister and assured that he would “never” accept “the arrest warrant for our minister Velásquez.”
For his part, Velásquez insisted that he always carried out his work with “total transparency.”
This Tuesday, January 17, the Guatemalan Government issued a statement in which it rejected “the outburst of the Colombian Government towards the Guatemalan Justice” and regretted that Petro turned into a “political” issue what was simply “of a legal order”, ” making abrupt decisions without following the corresponding diplomatic steps”.
The NGO Human Rights Watch also He came out to defend Iván Velásquezdefined his management against the Cicig as “brave” and assured that the investigation for corruption in Guatemala “does not make much sense.”
News in development…
