The Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office will ask the Supreme Court to strip the president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, and his vice president, Karin Herrera, of immunity for an alleged case of damages against the assets of the state university. The announcement takes place a day after the Supreme Court rejected an appeal presented by Arévalo to annul several actions by the Prosecutor’s Office that, according to the elected president, seek to prevent him from assuming power on January 14. The decision on immunity remains in the hands of the new members of the Supreme Court, surprisingly elected on Wednesday by Congress.
This Thursday, November 16, the Prosecutor’s Office indicated the president-elect, Bernardo Arévalo, of the Semilla movement, to participate in 2022 in the occupation of the campus of the University of San Carlos, the only state one.
“The Public Ministry will present the preliminary proceedings against Messrs. César Bernardo Arévalo de León” and the elected vice president, Karin Herrera, to deprive them of the immunity granted to them by their status as elected and take them to trial, said prosecutor Saúl Sánchez this Thursday in a Press conference.
Sánchez, who showed screenshots in which Arévalo is seen at the university headquarters, participating in academic events, when the campus had already been liberated, explained this Thursday that the crimes accused of both, in addition to six other opposition legislators, are “continued depredation of cultural property, illicit association and influence peddling.”
Between May and June 2022, the headquarters of the University of San Carlos was occupied by teachers and students in rejection of what they denounced as fraud in the election of rector Walter Mazariegos, linked to the government of right-wing president Alejandro Giammattei.
The Prosecutor’s Office also points out in the case the elected vice president, Karin Herrera, the Semilla Movement deputies Samuel Pérez and Román Castellanos and the elected deputy Raúl Barrera, among others, whom it accuses of using the takeover of the university as a “platform for their political candidacies.
This Thursday, the Prosecutor’s Office also carried out 30 raids and issued 27 arrest warrants against politicians, students, lawyers and university professors supposedly involved in the same case, for which the former candidate for deputy of the Semilla party Marcela Blanco was also arrested.
After the raids and Blanco’s arrest, Arévalo demanded “respect for the security and integrity” of the members of his party.
The MP’s actions against members of the Semilla Movement are spurious and unacceptable.
We demand respect for the safety and integrity of @marce__blanco and any other member of the party subjected to these abuses. We will be taking the necessary measures to protect you and…
— Bernardo Arévalo (@BArevalodeLeon) November 16, 2023
Arévalo insists on a persecution
Attorney General Consuelo Porras Argueta has been criticized in Guatemala and abroad in recent months for allegedly attempting to intervene in the electoral process and seeking to cancel the president-elect’s party.
The Prosecutor’s Office has already managed to disqualify the Semilla party and has filed several actions against the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which validated Arévalo’s victory in the elections.
Arévalo, a 65-year-old social democratic sociologist and currently a deputy in Congress, claims that Porras is leading an attempted “coup d’état” against him to prevent him from taking possession of the Presidency on January 14.
His complaint has received the support of the Organization of American States (OAS), which on Wednesday denounced attempts to “prevent a peaceful transition of power” in Guatemala, while the United States demanded that the results of the August 20 ballot be respected. , in which Arévalo won with a large advantage over former first lady Sandra Torres.
In the same sense, deputy Samuel Pérez Álvarez, from the Semilla Movement, assured this Thursday that the Public Ministry is using a case “without legal basis” to prevent Arévalo from assuming power.
“There is no real case, they are trying to connect points without meaning to lower themselves to the elected binomial and the Semilla deputies to prevent what was mandated by the people of Guatemala at the polls from being fulfilled,” Pérez Álvarez told EFE.
The case remains in the hands of a new Supreme Court
The Prosecutor’s Office’s request is now in the hands of the Supreme Court, whose new judges were surprisingly elected on Wednesday by Congress, dominated by the ruling party. That process had been pending since 2019.
“Any pretrial proceedings against the president [electo] Arévalo is going to the Supreme Court of Justice and against the elected vice president Karin Herrera as well,” legislative affairs consultant Víctor Valverth explained to AFP.
“The procedure followed [para retirar la inmunidad] It’s not so from today to tomorrow. In normal times, that would normally take a couple of months at least, but we are not in a rule of law, but rather a de facto state and then the laws are not complied with and the deadlines are not met,” added the NGO expert. Association for Legislative Development and Democracy.
Precisely, on Wednesday the Supreme Court rejected a request from Arévalo to stop the actions of the Prosecutor’s Office against the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and against Semilla and for legal actions to be taken against the attorney general, Consuelo Porras.
The request also included prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, who carried out raids and searches in the TSE offices, and magistrate Fredy Orellana, who ordered Semilla’s suspension for alleged irregularities in his training in 2017.
The announcement occurred almost at the same time as the controversial and surprising election in Congress of the new members of the Supreme Court.
With information from EFE and AFP
#Guatemalan #Prosecutors #Office #withdraw #immunity #elected #president #vice #president