Former Guatemalan leader denies corruption

GUATEMALA CITY— Otto Perez Molina sat in a defendant’s chair Friday and declared his innocence in a customs corruption scandal that forced him to resign a day earlier as president of this Central American nation.

The former leader denied prosecutors’ allegations that he was involved in a conspiracy to defraud the state by letting businesses evade import duties in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.

“The first thing I want to deny, I don’t belong to La Linea,” Perez Molina said, referring to the name of the fraud scheme, Spanish for the Line.

The hearing wrapped in the afternoon and the judge said he would make a ruling Tuesday.

Perez Molina was ordered to remain in custody until then at the same military barracks where he spent his first night as an ex-president.

Prosecutors argued that Perez Molina was in fact aware of the conspiracy, and formally asked the judge to order a trial on charges of illicit association and graft.

They presented 77 wiretap conversations that totalled more than five hours and were recorded over multiple days, as well as documents seized in raids that detailed how the bribes were divvied up.

Prosecutors contend that when people in the wiretaps refer to No. 1, they were alluding to Perez Molina and that former vice-president Roxana Baldetti was No. 2.

“The structure under the 1 and 2 received 50 per cent, and the 1 and 2 received the other 50 per cent” of the money, prosecutor Jose Antonio Morales alleged.

Baldetti resigned May 8 after her former personal secretary, who remains a fugitive, was named as the alleged ringleader of the scheme. Baldetti, now jailed and facing charges, also says she is innocent.

“Your honour, I am not going to risk my dignity, my work, nor all the effort I have made for Guatemala in return for $800,000,” Perez Molina said in allusion to dollar figures presented by prosecutors.

Dressed in a sharp blue suit and striped tie, he told The Associated Press he had been uncomfortable and slept little the previous night and hopes to be granted bond or house arrest.

“No jail is good. . . . I hope the judge gives me an alternative,” he said.

Perez Molina formally stepped down Thursday as Guatemala’s political crisis came to a dramatic climax and vice-president Alejandro Maldonado was sworn in hours later as the country’s new leader.

The country is set to vote Sunday for the next president in an election whose timing has nothing to do with the crisis.