House arrest ordered in second case against journalist José Rubén Zamora in Guatemala

( Spanish) – A Guatemalan court ordered this Friday that journalist and businessman José Rubén Zamora continue the criminal process under house arrest for alleged obstruction of justice, since the time in prison has exceeded the deadlines established by law for a person to be declared guilty. or innocent, said Judge Erick Daniel García.

The court orders that Zamora must appear for biometric control every eight days and appoint a person offered by the defense as a guarantor that he will appear at the proceedings that are still pending in two criminal proceedings. By the same measure, the journalist cannot leave the country or communicate with people linked to the process.

Zamora was arrested in July 2022 and later, in June 2023, a court sentenced him to six years in prison for money laundering and fined him just over US$38,000 for allegedly trying to introduce a similar sum into the financial system. without justifying its origin. That conviction was annulled in October 2023 by a Court of Appeals that ordered the trial to be repeated, a procedure for which there is still no date.

At the request of the defense, which argued that as a result of this case Zamora was forced to close El Periódico, the court did not impose financial bail on the journalist at the hearing this Friday. After learning of the ruling, Zamora was satisfied. “I’ll see you soon,” he told a group of reporters regarding the possibility of meeting his family in the coming days.

Zamora will not regain his freedom yet, since he must wait for the Court to notify the penal center of the ruling issued this Friday. Furthermore, the Public Ministry still has the possibility of filing an appeal against this ruling.

In fact, the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity, FECI, did not agree with Zamora’s freedom and announced during the hearing that there is another investigation underway against the journalist.
Reactions

Once the failure was known, the reactions were immediate. The president of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo, applauded the decision. “Zamora returns home. Justice is beginning to arrive, the dark cycle is going to end,” the Guatemalan president, who maintains a long confrontation with the attorney general, Consuelo Porras, wrote in his X account.

For its part, Amnesty International, an organization that has followed the case, requested in its X account that the Guatemalan authorities immediately put an end to “the improper use of criminal justice to harass, intimidate and punish journalists, human rights defenders human rights, judges and prosecutors.”

Organizations ask for “guarantees of due process”

This Thursday, before the hearing to review the measures, some 19 international organizations asked that “all guarantees of due process be respected” in the case.

The organizations, including Amnesty International and the Center for Justice and International Law, have expressed their “deep concern” over what they consider violations of the human rights of the award-winning journalist, founder of El Periódico, a newspaper that closed its operations on May 15, 2023.

According to a statement released by Amnesty International, these organizations consider that the “criminal persecution” against Zamora is an attack “against freedom of expression” in order to “silence critical voices in the country.”