Four years in prison for anti-corruption prosecutor

A court sentenced the anti-corruption prosecutor, Virginia Laparra, to four years in prison on Friday, who denounced a judge for leaking information about a case and was later accused by the Public Ministry of abuse of authority. Laparra will be able to regain her freedom by paying a $2,000 fine.

Laparra he has been in prison for nine months and their situation has garnered harsh national and international criticism. The last pronouncement, at the end of November, was from Amnesty International, which recognized the prosecutor as a prisoner of conscience in Guatemala and asked that the country put an end to the criminalization of justice operators.

The prison sentence dates back to a case that arose when Laparra denounced the then-judge Lesther Castellanos Rodas in 2018 for leaking information from a judicial process reserved for lawyer Omar Barrios, outside the case. Following the complaint, the judge received an administrative sanction that was revoked by the Supreme Court of Justice.

Subsequently, the same judge denounced Laparra, who worked in the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) and pointed out that she acted without the authorization of the head of the prosecutor’s office, Juan Francisco Sandoval, who is exiled in the United States. This argument was accepted by the court to issue the sentence against the prosecutor.

“The ruling against Virginia Laparra is disastrous for the weak rule of law in Guatemala. It is a precedent that demonstrates the criminalization and persecution of people who fight against corruption,” former attorney general Thelma Aldana, who is an asylum seeker in the United States, said on Twitter.

The directors of the Foundation Against Terrorism, Ricardo Méndez Ruiz and Raúl Falla, extreme-right activists who defend soldiers accused of war crimes, participated as plaintiffs in the trial. The two were sanctioned by the US State Department for blocking the fight against corruption in Guatemala and undermining democracy.

The foundation had no involvement in the case, but the Attorney General’s Office accepted them as a party to the legal process. Ricardo Méndez Ruiz has met on occasions with the head of the Public Ministry, Consuelo Porras, who was also sanctioned by the United States and her visa was withdrawn.

The judge denounced by Laparra for leaking information no longer holds his position in the judiciary and was chosen by the official alliance of the Guatemalan Congress as rapporteur against torture, a position to defend the rights of people deprived of liberty.

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