Guatemalan authorities have issued several recent arrest warrants and brought criminal charges against more judges and prosecutors previously given the job of weeding out corruption in Guatemala’s government.
The moves have fueled concerns among the U.S. government and rights groups about democratic backsliding in Guatemala. More than 30 Guatemalan anticorruption judges and prosecutors have left the country under threat of arrest over the past two years. The departures occurred amid weakening accountability for corruption, according to Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group.
Guatemalan authorities also said they are investigating possible criminal offenses by former U.N. corruption investigator
Iván Velásquez,
who is now serving as Colombia’s defense minister. The investigation has strained relations between the administration of Guatemalan President
Alejandro Giammattei
and Colombia’s leftist government.
Mr. Velásquez was the former chief of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. or Cicig, as the commission was also known. It was established in 2006 to investigate and prosecute entrenched corruption in Guatemala by opening its own criminal investigations and working with Guatemala’s attorney general’s office to bring cases to local courts.
Colombia’s Defense Minister Iván Velásquez attends the appointment ceremony of General Helder Fernan Giraldo Bonilla, the new military forces commander, in Bogota in August.
Photo:
LUISA GONZALEZ/REUTERS
Mr. Velásquez prosecuted many high-profile Guatemalans for corruption, including former president Otto Pérez, who was convicted of fraud and racketeering and sentenced to 16 years in prison late last year. He also brought cases against the heads of Guatemala’s central bank, customs and tax officials, legislators and political party leaders.
The commission was dismantled by the Guatemalan government in 2019 on grounds that it overreached, abused its authority and…
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