Guatemala wants to bring Colombia’s defense minister to justice

First modification: 01/17/2023 – 11:28

That entity attached to the UN and the Public Ministry revealed several corruption scandals. Among others, the one that involved former president Otto Pérez, who was accused of leading a customs fraud structure. Otto Pérez was sentenced to 16 years in prison last December.

The head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), Rafael Curruchiche, explained in a video broadcast on networks that the Colombian Defense Minister Iván Velásquez and the former Guatemalan Attorney General Thelma Aldana granted the “go-ahead” in 2017 to sign the “effective collaborator” agreements in the investigation into the Odebrecht case.

Both Velásquez and Aldana are accused of endorsing, presumably irregularly, these protected witness agreements.

Both “had full knowledge of the dark and corrupt negotiations that were taking place” with Odebrecht, adds the FECI special prosecutor.

Aldana, awarded in 2018 with the so-called “Alternative Nobel” along with Velásquez for leading an unprecedented fight against corruption in Guatemala, has been in asylum in the United States since 2020.

This announcement is in addition to several arrests against former CICIG officials and former FECI prosecutors, most accused of abuse of authority by the Public Ministry in charge of Consuelo Porras, sanctioned by the United States, which included her in 2021 on its list of ” corrupt and undemocratic.

Minister Velásquez rejected the accusation and indicated that he had not “been notified of any requirement by the Guatemalan authorities.”

President Gustavo Petro came out in defense of his minister, saying that he will never accept an arrest warrant and called the ambassador in Guatemala, Victoria González, “immediately for consultation.”