Guatemala City, January 4 (Prensa Latina) Guatemalan Judge Carmen Acú today tried the former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity (Feci) in Quetzaltenango, Virginia Laparra.
With no access to the media and under confidentiality, Acú ruled that Laparra will remain in pre-trial detention for the alleged crime of disclosing confidential information as part of a second case presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP).
In order to develop the corresponding investigations, this last instance is granted a period of three months, as it turned out this Wednesday at the end of the first hearing before the criminal court of Quetzaltenango.
At the request of the MP’s head of the internal affairs prosecutor, who considered that “the press violates the rights of the detainees and misrepresents the information”, the case is held back for 10 days.
In this way, it is forbidden to know first-hand details of the process, the hearings take place behind closed doors and the parties cannot discuss the issue.
On December 16, a court sentenced Laparra to four years in prison, convertible at a rate of 10 quetzales a day ($1.29), for the crime of persistent abuse of office.
The former Feci member then viewed the ruling by the defunct International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala as revenge against her.
This, together with the deputy headed by Thelma Aldana, was responsible for investigating transcendental corruption cases whose perpetrators culminated in prison, although until then they had been untouchable members of the highest echelons of government, military or businessmen.
Laparra faced the first trial for four times denouncing then-Judge Lester Castellanos for abuse of power in 2018, which, according to what emerged at the trial, was not his job from his Quetzaltenango jurisdiction.
Human rights organizations inside and outside Guatemala then criticized the sentence handed down to the former anti-corruption prosecutor, considering it part of the “selective prosecution of judicial actors” under the current government.
jha/mmc