Guatemala’s Cicig makes the ultimate accusation
The United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) has made the most dramatic claim since its creation nearly a decade ago. Cicig, together with the attorney general’s office (AG), directly accused President Otto Pérez Molina and his former vice-president, Roxana Baldetti, of heading up the corruption ring, ‘La Línea’, uncovered in the tax authority (SAT) in April [WR-15-19] – the first of various scandals to rock the political establishment. Pérez Molina’s Partido Patriota (PP) government is in total disarray after six ministers resigned in the wake of the allegations. The supreme court (CSJ) ordered the 158-member unicameral legislature to determine whether to strip Pérez Molina of his immunity in order to face investigation. The institutional and political crisis comes with just over a week until the general elections on 6 September.
In a press conference on 21 August, Cicig’s chief, Colombian jurist Iván Velásquez Gómez, and Attorney General Thelma Aldana, said that “evidence based on 88,920 telephone taps, 5,906 emails and 17 raids suggested close relations between President Pérez Molina, Baldetti and ‘La Línea’ which was apparently also led by Juan Carlos Monzón, Baldetti’s former private secretary, who remains at large. An AG press release issued three days later contained further details, citing conversations between Baldetti – referred to as ‘La Señora’ (since arrested and due to face trial for crimes including illicit association and tax fraud) – regarding the January appointment of a new SAT superintendent, Omar Franco Chacón, who was known within the criminal organisation as ‘El de Anteojitos’. The same press release also cited communications between the SAT leadership and Pérez Molina, who reportedly gave orders to appoint a new head of human resources at the SAT likely to be sympathetic to ‘La Línea’ which made some Q$28m (US$3.66m) through anomalous customs transactions.