Guatemala president to expel anti-corruption chief
GUATEMALA CITY — President Jimmy Morales announced Sunday he was expelling the head of a U.N. anticorruption commission investigating his campaign’s financing — only to have the order quickly blocked by Guatemala’s top court.
Morales’ move also drew criticism from the international community, including the United States, and at least two protests sprang up in the capital to decry the order.
A video posted on the government’s Twitter site early Sunday showed Morales declaring Ivan Velasquez “non grata” and ordered him to leave the country immediately. The president also announced he was firing Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales for failing to carry out the expulsion.
Morales said nothing of kicking out the entire commission of foreign experts, but the expulsion would leave its future unclear. The decade-old panel has worked with Guatemalan prosecutors to root out corruption and was key to bringing down former President Otto Perez Molina, who was forced to resign in 2015 and remains in prison.
Within hours, Francisco de Mata Vela, head of Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, said that body had issued a temporary injunction blocking the order
to expel Velasquez. The court will now analyze the case before reaching a definitive decision. It was not clear how long that would take.
Morales released another video at affirming his decision to boot Velasquez. He said Velasquez overstepped his authority by improperly pressuring the
country’s legislative process and making public accusations against Guatemalans in spite of a presumption of innocence and guarantee of due process.
Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana, working with the U.N. commission, announced Friday she was asking the Supreme Court to recommend stripping Morales
of his immunity from prosecution in order to investigate financing of his 2015 campaign, when he ran on the slogan “Neither corrupt nor a crook.” If the court agrees, the decision on immunity would be made by Congress.
The prosecutor said Morales had refused to account for more than $800,000 in campaign financing and had hidden his own party’s accounts. Velasquez said at the joint news conference with Aldana that financing of some campaign expenditures could not be explained.
Morales repeatedly has denied any wrongdoing.
The embassies of international donor countries that support the U.N. commission — United States, Germany, Canada, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the European Union — issued a joint statement regretting Morales’ decision.
The commission “has played a vital role in the fight against impunity and corruption that undermine security and prosperity in Guatemala. The decision to expel Commissioner Ivan Velasquez harms the ability of CICIG to achieve its mandate,” the statement said.
U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed disappointment in Morales’ decision. In a statement, he said the U.S. government would examine the future of its foreign assistance to Guatemala.
Later Sunday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement the U.S. was “deeply concerned” by Morales’ decision. She said Velasquez has been an effective leader of the commission and “it remains crucial that [the commission] be permitted to work free from interference by the Guatemalan government.”