New Wave of Persecution Reaches Anti-Corruption Prosecutor and Guatemala's Former Human Rights Ombudsman

Stuardo Campo at La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City in January 2019.Santiago Billy (AP)

The Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor Stuardo Campo, who investigated acts of corruption during the administration of former President Jimmy Morales, has been arrested this Friday for alleged anomalies in three cases that he has brought to justice. In addition, the Public Ministry seeks to initiate a criminal case against former Human Rights Ombudsman Jordán Rodas, who aspired to the vice presidency along with indigenous leader Thelma Cabrera. Both cases show a new wave of criminalization of officials involved in the fight against corruption less than a month before general elections in Guatemala.

During his career as a prosecutor for more than ten years, Campo led an investigation that revealed failures in the contracting of the company that built a highway, known as the "megaobra" of the government of Morales, the president who ended the mandate of the International Commission Against Impunity of Guatemala (CICIG). Campo also initiated the investigation that in 2021 revealed public purchases of overvalued meteorological equipment that benefited companies linked to Deputy Jorge García Silva, who is seeking re-election despite allegations of corruption.

Upon arriving at the court, guarded by the police officers who captured him, Campo told the press that Attorney General Consuelo Porras assured him yesterday "that she would never proceed arbitrarily, that she would be objective." The case against the prosecutor arises from a complaint by the Foundation Against Terrorism, like the rest of the cases that have dozens of justice operators, defense lawyers and journalists in prison and exile.

No official explanations

In the cases against the prosecutor and the former magistrate, the reservation has been decreed, so no details have been provided about the accusations and the hearings will be behind closed doors. This situation lends itself to arbitrariness and has been used by prosecutors to hide the weakness of the charges, according to Alejandro Rodríguez of Impunity Watch. "It is the method he is using to avoid the defense of the accused and the social control of the cases; They do not want the weaknesses of the accusations and the absence of evidence to be known," adds the lawyer.

Augusto Jordán Rodas, in a file image. Sandra Sebastian

From exile, Rodas does not know what he is accused of and assures that his candidacy for the vice presidency was "blocked" by "the criminal alliance or pact of corrupt that brings together political public officials and members of the private sector" who intend to stay in power. Rodas played a fundamental role in the push for the permanence of the International Commission Against Impunity, among others. "My management was uncomfortable" for many power groups, Rodas says, such as the actions he took when then-President Morales declared CICIG chief Iván Velásquez, now defense minister in Colombia's government, non grata.

That commission brought to justice more than 120 files in which the highest Guatemalan officials are implicated in acts of corruption. With the departure of the CICIG in 2019, corruption investigations stalled and a stage of annulment of sentences that had been achieved and persecution of prosecutors, judges and other actors who carried out the cases was opened.

One of the most emblematic cases of criminalization is that of prosecutor Francisco Sandoval, who in 2021 had to leave the country after being fired by Attorney General Porras, who prevented him from continuing with the investigations to document the alleged bribe that President Alejandro Giammattei would have received from Russian and Kazakh businessmen.

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