US adds Guatemalans targeting president-elect to blacklist


AFP
Thu, 21 December 2023 

Guatemala's President-elect Bernardo Arevalo speaks during an interview with AFP in Panama City on December 19, 2023 (Gerardo PESANTEZ)

The United States on Thursday added Guatemalan prosecutors targeting president-elect Bernardo Arevalo to a corruption blacklist, making them ineligible for US visas.

Arevalo pulled off an upset in August elections on an anti-corruption platform and has since been in a tug-of-war with authorities seen as attempting to block his inauguration on January 14.

In a report to Congress, the State Department newly added to a blacklist several prosecutors including Leonor Morales, who recently said that Arevalo's election was null and void because of alleged anomalies in voting.

The report said Morales "undermined democratic processes or institutions" through a "politically motivated investigation to cast doubt on certified election results to disrupt the presidential transition."

The report also confirmed the listings from a preliminary report this year of judge Fredy Orellana and prosecutor Cinthia Monterroso, who among others face lawsuits brought by Arevalo.

The people on the list will no longer be eligible for US visas, with any current visas to be revoked.

Prosecutors have seized ballots in the first round of the election and, in between the two rounds, sought to suspend Arevalo's party, moves that raised international concern.

In an interview this week with AFP, Arevalo voiced confidence that he would be allowed to take office after blocking the "slow-motion coup d'etat."

The latest actions are part of an annual report required by the US Congress on corruption in Central America.

Among others confirmed on the blacklist are El Salvador's ex-president Mauricio Funes, who was accused by the State Department of schemes that resulted in the "pilfering hundreds of millions of dollars from state coffers."

Funes, who was president from 2009 to 2014, left for leftist-run Nicaragua in 2016.

Earlier this year, he was sentenced in absentia to 14 years in prison for alleged secret negotiations with criminal gangs that long rampaged through El Salvador.

sct/mdl