(Washington, DC, December 18, 2024) – Guatemala’s attorney general is carrying out politically motivated prosecutions against members of President Bernardo Arévalo’s administration, Human Rights Watch said today.
Since President Arévalo took office in January 2024, the Attorney General’s Office has moved forward with criminal investigations against the Arévalo administration that appear to be based on dubious evidence. In November, a judge ordered the cancelation of the president’s political party’s legal registration, as part of a case brought by the Attorney General’s Office. These decisions follow Attorney General Consuelo Porras’ efforts to prevent President Arévalo from taking office through a range of legal actions that the US government, the European Union, and members of the Organization of American States (OAS) criticized as efforts to undermine democracy.
“Attorney General Porras, who led an effort to unlawfully overturn the elections, is abusing the powers of her office to prosecute government officials through dubious evidence and legal maneuvers,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of investigating the organized crime and widespread corruption in Guatemala, the attorney general appears to be bringing these selective prosecutions to undermine a government she opposes.”
Between August and November, Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 people, including senior government officials, former prosecutors, lawmakers, and others. These included Ligia Hernández, a former government official and lawmaker, whom Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed while she was in pretrial detention at Matamoros prison. Researchers reviewed court documents and public statements by officials from the Attorney General’s Office. Human Rights Watch sent a letter to the attorney general on December 2 requesting information on her office’s investigations into corruption; she has not responded.
The Attorney General’s Office has initiated at least 17 investigations against high-level government officials, and at least six times asked the Supreme Court to strip President Arévalo of his immunity, so that he can be criminally investigated.
Human Rights Watch found that the attorney general repeatedly accused government officials of committing offenses, such as “abuse of power” on the basis of alleged conduct that does not appear to be criminal. In many cases, following seemingly exaggerated accusations against the government in high-profile news conferences, prosecutors then declared cases “classified.” This has hampered the ability of the public at large—and often the defendants and their lawyers—to understand the nature of the investigations.
President Arévalo took office despite a campaign by Attorney General Porras and some members of the judiciary to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and prevent his inauguration. During the electoral process, prosecutors raided the Supreme Electoral Tribunal—Guatemala’s electoral authority—multiple times, seized over 125,000 original electoral documents, and suspended the legal registration of the president’s party, Movimiento Semilla.
Porras has undermined investigations into corruption and human rights abuses, including by transferring or firing the prosecutors in charge, Human Rights Watch said. Her office also brought arbitrary prosecutions against independent judges, prosecutors, and journalists. They include an anti-corruption prosecutor, Stuardo Campos, who remains behind bars; José Ruben Zamora, the founder and editor of the news outlet elPeriódico, who is under house arrest; and Virgina Laparra, a top anti-corruption prosecutor, who fled the country after almost two years in jail.
The EU and the United States have sanctioned Porras and some of her key allies, including her assistant Ángel Pineda; a special prosecutor, Rafael Curruchiche; and Judge Fredy Orellana, who ordered the cancelation of Movimiento Semilla’s legal registration.
In one case documented by Human Rights Watch, Curruchiche asked the Supreme Court on August 21 to strip President Arévalo of his presidential immunity, so that he could be criminally investigated. Curruchiche accused the president of “abuse of authority,” “usurpation of functions,” and “constitutional violations.”
In a news conference, Curruchiche said that the accusations are based on an audio recording in which Arévalo fires a minister who the president says paid a public contractor through an unauthorized procedure. Curruchiche did not explain how Arévalo’s decision to fire the minister would constitute a crime but accused the president of being “the main sponsor of corruption and impunity in Guatemala.” Following the news conference, prosecutors declared the case “classified.” Government lawyers say they have not had access to the file.
Also in August, the Attorney General’s Office asked the Supreme Court to lift the immunity of Santiago Palomo, the president’s communications secretary and former anti-corruption adviser, and of Blanca Alfaro, a member of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal. The prosecutor accused Alfaro and Palomo of “obstructing criminal investigations,” among other crimes, because Alfaro disclosed details about the electoral material seized during a raid and Palomo revealed details of the investigation via official government communications channels.
On August 13, the police detained Ligia Hernández, the director of the Victim’s Institute (Insituto de la Víctima), a government body in charge of supporting victims of crime. Prosecutors charged her with “unregistered electoral financing” and “electoral fund supervision violations,” claiming she concealed funding for Movimiento Semilla. These are offenses that, according to several Guatemalan legal experts, are normally addressed through administrative—not criminal—procedures. Judge Orellana held Hernández in pretrial detention for three months, until Hernández accepted a plea deal.
In November, Judge Orellana cited Hernández’s plea deal to order the cancellation of Movimiento Semilla’s legal registration. The EU and the United States had previously sanctioned Orellana for undermining democratic processes.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General’s Office has failed to move forward with other corruption investigations. For example, it closed investigations into whether former President Alejandro Giammattei (2020-2024) received bribes from a Russian company operating in Guatemala and from a former government official accused of corruption. It also dismissed investigations into alleged corruption within the Ministry of Health and fraud in healthcare procurement.
In August, Guatemala’s tax agency presented a criminal complaint accusing 410 companies of evading taxes, for a total of over US$38 million. Instead of investigating the alleged tax fraud, the Attorney General’s Office in December opened an investigation against the director of the tax agency, who filed the complaint, accusing him of “extortion” and “influence peddling.”
The Arévalo administration has presented 198 criminal complaints based on indications of corruption it found since taking office. According to the government’s Commission against Corruption, prosecutors have closed 37 cases and only six have moved beyond the initial stages of investigation.
The Attorney General’s Office shows alarming impunity rates across serious crimes, with over 94 percent of cases involving violence against women, aggravated robbery, extortion, and homicide going unresolved. Impunity has contributed to violence, reduced public trust in institutions, and undermined the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said.