Anti-graft prosecutor flees Guatemala after criticized conviction
Anti-graft prosecutor flees Guatemala after criticized conviction
A Guatemalan former anti-corruption prosecutor sentenced to five years in prison in a case that drew international criticism said Thursday that she had gone into exile because she feared further persecution.
Virginia Laparra, described by Amnesty International as a "prisoner of conscience," was found guilty last week of disclosing confidential information.
A judge ruled that the 44-year-old mother of two could remain under house arrest instead of going to jail if she paid $1,168, in addition to a fine of $6,400.
Laparra, who was not supposed to leave the country, said in a letter published on social media that she had feared further "judicial persecution" if she remained.
"No one should suffer what I was forced to face in recent times," added the former prosecutor, without revealing where she had gone.
"I was arbitrarily detained for two years during which I was treated inhumanely," she said.
Laparra is one of multiple former prosecutors who had investigated corruption cases in Guatemala and were arrested on the watch of Attorney General Consuelo Porras.
Porras was sanctioned in 2021 by the United States, which has placed her on a list of "corrupt" and "undemocratic" actors.
Washington accuses the attorney general's office of "undermining" democracy over attempts to delegitimize the election last year of President Bernardo Arevalo on an anti-graft platform.
Arevalo wrote on social media platform X on Thursday: "While Virginia is forced to leave the country, the corrupt walk the streets with impunity."
In another widely criticized trial, Laparra was sentenced in December 2022 to four years in prison after being convicted of abuse of authority.
Last December, Guatemala's supreme court ordered her release on house arrest after she had already served almost half her jail term, including pre-sentencing detention.
Amnesty International said last week that Laparra's new sentence was "yet another example of the political persecution" of people fighting corruption in Guatemala.
The US State Department assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere affairs, Brian Nichols, criticized the sentencing as the latest in a series of "egregious attacks" on the rule of law.
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