President expels UN corruption probe chief

GUATEMALAN PRESIDENT Jimmy Morales has announced he is expelling the head of a UN anticorruption commission investigating his campaign’s financing.

But the order was blocked hours later by the country’s top court.

A video posted on the government’s Twitter site early on Sunday showed Mr Morales declaring Ivan Velasquez “non grata” and ordering him to leave the country.

He also announced he was firing Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales for failure to carry out the expulsion.

Mr Morales said nothing of kicking out the entire commission of foreign experts, but the expulsion would leave its future unclear.

However, by noon Francisco de Mata Vela, head of Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, said that it had issued a temporary injunction blocking the order. The court will now analyse the case.

Mr Velasquez heads a 10-yearold commission of experts backed by the United States, Germany, Canada, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Union to root out corruption.

It was key to bringing down former president Otto Perez Molina, who was forced to resign in 2015 and remains in prison.

Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana, working with the UN commission, announced on Friday that she was asking the Supreme Court to recommend stripping Mr Morales of his immunity from prosecution in order to investigate financing of his 2015 campaign.

The prosecutor said Mr Morales had refused to account for more than $800,000 in campaign financing and had hidden his own party’s accounts.

Mr Morales denies any wrongdoing but 2,500 people demonstrated in the capital on Saturday to demand his resignation.

A musician carries his alphorn past others during a meeting of alphorn musicians in Engetried near Markt Rettenbach, southern Germany, yesterday. About 300 musicians participated at the meeting.

Created new uproar by pardoning sheriff known for targeting Hispanics.