Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor Stuardo Campo, who investigated acts of corruption during the administration of former President Jimmy Morales, was arrested this Friday for alleged anomalies in three cases that he has brought to justice. In addition, the Public Ministry seeks to initiate a criminal case against the former Human Rights attorney Jordán Rodas, who aspired to the vice presidency together with the indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera. Both cases show a new wave of criminalization of officials involved in the fight against corruption less than a month before the general elections in Guatemala.
During his career as a prosecutor for more than ten years, Campo led an investigation that revealed flaws in the hiring of the company that built a highway, known as the “mega-project” of the Government of Morales, the president who ended the mandate of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Campo also began the investigation that in 2021 revealed public purchases of overpriced meteorological equipment that benefited companies linked to deputy Jorge García Silva, who is seeking re-election despite allegations of corruption.
Upon arriving at the courts, guarded by the police officers who captured him, Campo told the press that Attorney General Consuelo Porras assured him yesterday “that she would never proceed arbitrarily, that she would be objective.” The case against the prosecutor arises from a complaint from the Foundation against Terrorism, like the rest of the cases that he has dozens of justice operators, defense lawyers and journalists in prison and in exile.
No official explanations
In the cases against the prosecutor and the former magistrate, the reserve has been decreed, so no details about the accusations have been provided and the hearings will be behind closed doors. This situation lends itself to arbitrariness and has been used by the prosecution to hide the weakness of the accusations, according to Alejandro Rodríguez of Impunity Watch. “It is the method he is using to avoid the defense of the accused and the social control of the cases; They don’t want the weaknesses of the accusations and the absence of evidence to be known,” adds the lawyer.
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From exile, Rodas does not know what he is accused of and assures that his candidacy for the vice presidency was “blocked” by “the criminal alliance or corrupt pact that brings together political public officials and members of the private sector” who intend to remain in power. . Rodas played a fundamental role in the push for the permanence of the International Commission Against Impunity, among others. “My management was uncomfortable” for many power groups, says Rodas, such as the actions he took when then-President Morales declared not welcome the head of the CICIG, Iván Velásquez, today the Minister of Defense of the Colombian government.
That commission brought to justice more than 120 files in which the highest Guatemalan officials are involved in acts of corruption. With the departure of the CICIG, in 2019, the corruption investigations stalled and a stage of annulment of sentences that had been achieved and prosecution of the prosecutors, judges and other actors who carried out the cases began.
One of the most emblematic criminalization cases is that of prosecutor Francisco Sandoval, who in 2021 had to leave the country after being fired by Attorney General Porras, who prevented him from continuing with the investigations to document the alleged bribe that President Alejandro received. Giammattei on behalf of Russian and Kazakh businessmen.
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