The Government of the President of Guatemala, Bernardo Arévalo de León, presented this Thursday, February 29, a criminal complaint against the Attorney General of Guatemala, Consuelo Porras Argueta. She accuses her of “dereliction of duty” for refusing to meet with him last month. Porras has been sanctioned by the United States, Canada and the European Union and criticized in Guatemala and abroad for allegedly trying to intervene in the electoral process that gave Arévalo victory and block his inauguration.
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The confrontation between the Attorney General of Guatemala, Consuelo Porras Argueta, and President Bernardo Arévalo de León continues. This Thursday, February 29, the Arévalo Government filed a criminal complaint against the prosecutor for “criminal conduct” and requested that her immunity be withdrawn.
Both the Attorney General's Office and the General Secretariat of the Presidency claim that Consuelo Porras Argueta broke the law by refusing to meet with the president on January 29 at a cabinet meeting.
According to the Attorney General of the Nation, Julio Saavedra, the prosecutor has the obligation to attend the cabinet meetings to which the president summons her and account for her management at the head of the Public Ministry.
“The prosecutor failed to fulfill her duties and on instructions from the president I have presented a request for a pretrial,” Saavedra told the media in the Guatemalan capital.
Porras Argueta showed up at the January 29 meeting, but left before it started. He argued that it was not the legal way to meet with the president.
“I found it necessary to withdraw since the meeting was intended to be held within the framework of the Council of Ministers, which by constitutional and legal mandate prohibits me from participating,” the prosecutor stated then.
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As indicated by the Prosecutor's Office in a message sent to AFP, “the decision of the attorney general is duly based on what is established by law, so it is considered that the request for the withdrawal of pre-trial (immunity) lacks legal basis, being spurious and with a possible political origin with the aim of obstructing justice”.
The courts are now expected to order the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the complaint against Porras Argueta.
“This is going to be one of several actions that will be undertaken by the Executive against all those corrupt actors, those actors who are against the rule of law,” said the Secretary General of the Presidency, Juan Guerrero.
Months of tension between Arévalo de León and Porras Argueta
Since the surprise electoral victory of the progressive Bernardo Arévalo on August 20, 2023, the Prosecutor's Office was accused of trying to prevent his inauguration. Among other things, he had attempted to annul the elections by provisionally suspending Arévalo's party, the Semilla Movement. Arévalo, who put the fight against corruption at the center of his program, accused her of trying to carry out a coup d'état in the country.
Until Arévalo's official inauguration, on January 27, the political context was very tense in the country, with constant doubts about the possibility, or not, for Arévalo of being invested. Finally, he was sworn in as president of the country with an unusual delay in the ceremony.
The attorney general was sanctioned by the United States, Canada and the European Union for attacking the country's democracy. The president of Guatemala asked him to publicly resign.
“The resignation request is public and well-known. It is in the public domain, she knows it and I believe it is placed on the table, so that she is the one who defines with her actions whether she is accepting it or not,” the president had declared. .
However, she always refused to do so, stating that she will finish her second term, scheduled to last until 2026. Consuelo Porras Argueta arrived at the Prosecutor's Office in 2018, and according to the law, she has no obligation to abandon her position unless she is recognized. guilty of having committed a crime.
With EFE and AFP
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