Guatemala's 71-year-old former president Alvaro Colom (2008-2012), sanctioned by the United States for a 2021 corruption scandal, died on Monday (January 23), former members of his cabinet said.
The causes of death have not yet been specified.
“
President Alvaro Colom has passed away.
I regret his passing and join in prayer for his eternal rest
,” former Interior Minister Carlos Menocal (2010-2012) wrote on Twitter, without giving further details on the death of the former chief executive. State, who was being followed for esophageal cancer.
Registered on the “Engel” list
“
Working and learning alongside him has been a privilege.
I understood and got to know Guatemala thanks to him.
A just man, who dared to make the invisible visible (...).
Farewell, President Colom
,” tweeted former presidential spokesman Fernando Barillas.
The former president was sanctioned in July 2021 by Washington, which put him on the so-called "
Engel
" list, which lists individuals identified as "
corrupt and anti-democratic
" in the "
Northern Triangle
" of Central America. .
He had been banned from entering the United States after being arrested in 2018 for fraud and embezzlement in the purchase in 2009 for 35 million dollars of several hundred buses.
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According to the judicial authorities of Guatemala, the bill for buses in the capital, for which four companies had been chosen by tender to provide the public transport service, had been inflated.
The former president was released after posting bail.
The case was also investigated by the UN Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).