The Ninth Criminal Sentencing Court of Guatemala granted the measure of house arrest this Wednesday morning to journalist José Rubén Zamora, after the founder of the newspaper He spent 656 days in a cell at the Mariscal Zavala prison. The change in the substitute measure does not affect the two cases that the controversial Public Ministry (MP) led by the prosecutor sanctioned Consuelo Porras He has maintained against Zamora since 2022, so, for the moment, he will remain in jail.
The Prosecutor’s Office requested at least 40 years in prison against Zamora, considered a leader in investigative journalism in his country, for the alleged crimes of money laundering (20 years), influence peddling (12) and blackmail (8). and, finally, use of falsified documents and obstruction of justice. The journalist was arrested in July 2022, for allegedly hiding the origin of 300,000 quetzales (about $38,000). That money was seized in cash.
Zamora confirmed in documents that it was a loan to be able to pay the salary of his newspaper staff. It was because of that case that they imposed preventive detention on him, which was soon interpreted by public opinion in Guatemala and Central America as a case of political persecution to silence the journalist and his media outlet, whose investigations exposed the corruption prevailing in the Government of Alejandro Gianmattei. In May 2023, the newspaper published its latest edition after denouncing months of siege and pressure from the Guatemalan authorities.
“There is no danger of flight”
During the hearing held at the Court Tower in Guatemala City this Wednesday, the three judges in charge ruled that there is no danger of escape or obstruction of the investigation, as argued by the MP, who requested that Zamora remain in prison. Before that, the head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI), Rafael Curruchiche, tried to prevent the hearing from taking place.
The journalist put the former human rights attorney Jorge de León Duque as the “guarantor” of his stay in the country, who was present at the hearing where the prison sentence imposed on Zamora was reviewed. “I have been very patient, with a lot of faith (…) I am very happy,” said the journalist as he left the hearing room.
To the founder of the extinct the newspaper He was granted house arrest, a bail of 30,000 quetzales (approximately $3,750) and to attend the MP’s control of measures. His freedom cannot yet be executed, due to a second process initiated by the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (FECI) against him, which keeps him in the same situation.
In that second case, Zamora is accused of the crime of obstruction of justice. The MP assures that the journalist participated in an alleged “conspiracy to obstruct an ongoing investigation related to money possibly the product of money laundering”, an event that supposedly occurred in 2013, and which was the reason for his arrest in July 2022.
While Zamora faces the trial against him, his case has been gaining international relevance, especially in a region like Central America where both authoritarianism and the criminalization of journalism are on the rise. The hearing also took place a day after the foundation founded by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez announced that the director of the newspaper won the 2024 Gabo Award Recognition of Excellence.
The Governing Council of the Gabo Foundation recognized “the three decades of tenacious and courageous professional work whose driving force has been to reveal the corruption and Human Rights abuses that have devastated Guatemala.” And they highlighted that the award to Zamora goes far beyond him: “It is a symbol of the democratic crossroads that Guatemala and other Latin American countries are going through. He is a fervent call to seek new ways to protect freedom of the press in our societies and to vindicate good journalism, an exercise inseparable from democratic life.
Before the hearing, Zamora referred to the Gabo Award: “I receive it on behalf of colleagues in the region like Carlos Fernando Chamorro from Nicaragua, from the people of Confidencial, who are in exile, or like El Faro, from El Salvador, who are under persecution (…) It is a recognition for the region and for Guatemala. “This puts us on the map and in some way it is an encouragement for everyone.”
The change of substitute measure has brought some relief to Guatemala, where the new president Bernardo Arévalo is trying to shake off the burden of the so-called “corrupt pact”, starting with prosecutor Porras, who on several occasions tried to derail his presidential candidacy and then unsuccessfully prevent his investiture. After more than 100 days of his government, Arévalo is trying to modify the Organic Law of the Public Ministry in order to dismiss Porras.
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