{"id":7676,"date":"2022-03-22T08:23:51","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T12:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7676"},"modified":"2022-03-22T08:23:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-22T12:23:51","slug":"anti-corruption-guatemalan-judge-resigns-and-flees-to-the-united-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=7676","title":{"rendered":"Anti-Corruption Guatemalan Judge Resigns and Flees to the United States"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/bbd052ec55454cb9b405169c331b0daf\/1000.jpeg\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guatemalan judge for high risk crimes Erika Aifan poses for a photo at her courtroom in Guatemala City, Nov. 8, 2019. Aifan, the Guatemalan judge considered key in fighting corruption, announced her resignation on Monday, March 21, 2022 and that she has decided to leave Guatemala. (AP Photo\/Moises Castillo, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">A Guatemalan judge considered key in fighting corruption announced her resignation on Monday and that she has decided to leave the Central American country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">Judge Erika Aif\u00e1n has presided over corruption cases against businessmen, officials, judges and lawmakers, and she was recently overseeing an investigation about alleged irregularities during current President Alejandro Giammattei\u2019s campaign. She has been pursued by her own colleagues and she faces at least 20 legal complaints for allegedly overstepping, something she denies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">\u201cThey left me no other option,\u201d she said to The Associated Press on a phone conversation from Washington, where she fled.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">Aif\u00e1n is the latest case of other Guatemalan judges and prosecutors who have left the country in recent months after the government had started investigations or even looking to arrest those who oversee corruption cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">Aif\u00e1n said she had felt particular pressure from Guatemalan Attorney General Consuelo Porras, whose visa was canceled by the U.S. government because of corruption concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">\u201cShe has manipulated the Prosecutor\u2019s office, prosecuting those of us who have worked to fight against impunity and corruption,\u201d Aif\u00e1n said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">One of Aif\u00e1n\u2019s most recent cases was an investigation about alleged illegal funding to Giammattei\u2019s presidential campaign in 2019. The President has denied any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">The U.N. and the U.S. government had criticized and condemned in the past what they have considered \u201charassment\u201d of the judge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Component-root-0-2-71 Component-p-0-2-62\">In July 2021, the U.S. government announced the suspension of its cooperation with Guatemala\u2019s Attorney General\u2019s Office in response to the firing of its then top anti-corruption prosecutor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Guatemalan judge considered key in fighting corruption announced her resignation on Monday and that she has decided to leave the Central American country. Judge Erika Aif\u00e1n has presided over corruption cases against businessmen, officials, judges and lawmakers, and she was recently overseeing an investigation about alleged irregularities during current President Alejandro Giammattei\u2019s campaign. She&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":7678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/afs-prod\/media\/bbd052ec55454cb9b405169c331b0daf\/1000.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Anti-Corruption Guatemalan Judge Resigns and Flees to the United States","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polity-governance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7677,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7676\/revisions\/7677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}