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(CNN Spanish) - Former first lady Ana Ligia Mixco de Saca is accused by the Prosecutor's Office of El Salvador of laundering 17 million dollars and, according to the law of the country, of being convicted could be sentenced with up to 15 years in prison.
According to the indictment, Mixco de Saca received during the five-year period from her husband, former president Elías Antonio Saca, deposits of $ 10,000 per month in personal accounts that came from public funds, without being a civil servant or exercising any position in the government cabinet.
"It is not true what the Prosecutor's Office says," Mixco de Saca said in November 2016, through a video released by his son at a press conference.
No abbreviated trial
The Prosecutor's Office says that he had reached an agreement with the lawyers of the former first lady for an abbreviated trial in exchange for pleading guilty.
However, the Prosecutor's Office assures that the agreement was broken because "it did not intend to return the 17 million dollars", so he asked the court that the ordinary trial continue its course.
Mixco de Saca's defense does not rule out that they can resume the agreement with the Prosecutor. "We never rule out a possibility for a special outing like that," Miguel Flores Durel, a lawyer for the former first lady, told reporters.
Together with Mixco de Saca, the court ordered two more people to face the trial stage, while another ten were dismissed.
Mixco de Saca helped her husband, according to Prosecutor
According to the Prosecutor's Office, Mixco de Saca helped her husband to launder 17 million dollars, part of the more than 300 million for which he was already convicted in September 2018.
Saca is serving ten years in prison for money and money laundering and assets.
On September 19, Saca was also sentenced to two years in prison for the crime of active bribery.
LEE : Antonio Saca, former president of El Salvador, sentenced to two years in prison
The Prosecutor's Office accused him of offering $ 10,000 in 2016 to a judicial employee in exchange for anticipated information in an investigation he had faced since February 2016 for illicit enrichment.
In both proceedings, Saca pleaded guilty in an abbreviated trial, as part of an agreement with the Prosecutor to receive minor penalties.