The arrest of a journalist for “money laundering”, on August 10, comes after a series of arrests of judges and prosecutors engaged in the fight against corruption.
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The renowned Guatemalan journalist, José Ruben Zamora, in preventive prison since August 10, says: “It is a political persecution!” His arrest, after he revealed corruption cases involving President Alejandro Giammattei, in office since 2020, and his relatives, caused indignation beyond the borders of Guatemala against the authoritarian aberrations of the government.
Director and founder of the daily, ElperioDico, Mr. Zamora, 65, was arrested on July 29 at his home in the capital of this small country in Central America (17 million inhabitants). Twelve days later, a judge charged him for “money laundering, blackmail and influence traffic”. The accused claims his innocence. He denounces “a montage orchestrated by the president and the general prosecutor [consuelo porras]”.
The arrest of Mr. Zamora intervened a few days after the publication by Elperiodico of several critical articles against Mr. Giammattei and Mrs. Porras. At the beginning of the year, the newspaper also echoed revelations on a bridge pot of $ 2.6 million perceived by the president to finance his electoral campaign in exchange for the award of markets .
In reaction, hundreds of Guatemahs demonstrated on August 11 in the capital to demand the release of the journalist and the end of political corruption. A claim also required by numerous international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), which denounce the instrumentalization of justice for repressive purposes. Not to mention the “concerns” expressed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. The latter linked Mr. Zamora’s arrest to the other “legal actions against justice officials in Guatemala”, referring to the dozen judges and prosecutors, engaged in the fight against corruption, arrested or forced to the ‘exile for months.
popularity at half mast
On July 29, Samari Carolina Gomez, auxiliary prosecutor of the special prosecution against impunity (FECI), was also arrested for supposed “revelations of confidential information” in the Zamora case. The FECI had been created, in 2008, to collaborate with the International Commission against impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) launched by the UN a year earlier, in order to conduct surveys on corruption affairs. For eleven years, the collaboration between the FECI and the CICIG had pursued dozens of politicians, soldiers and great bosses. At the head, the president, Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2015), forced to resign by accusations of fraud on the customs income which had led him to preventive prison. But his successor, Jimmy Morales, put an end to the CICIG in September 2019, after having been the subject of an investigation for illicit financing of his presidential campaign.
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