Former Guatemalan pres. rejects corruption charges
Guatemala's former president Otto Perez Molina has appeared in a court in the capital, Guatemala City, claiming he was innocent of all charges against him.
"The first thing I want to deny, I don't belong to the Line,” Perez Molina said on Friday, referring to the name of an illegal group in his administration involved in a customs corruption scandal by letting businesses evade import duties in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.
"Your honor, I am not going to risk my dignity, my work, nor all the effort I have made for Guatemala in return for $800,000," Perez Molina said in reference to the amount of money prosecutors said he had received.
Perez Molina told the court that he had been offered much higher sums from the fugitive Mexican drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, in 1993.
"After his capture, I was offered 10, 15 times more than that amount in bribes [to let him go]. I didn't do it because that goes against my principles," he said.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Perez Molina was, in fact, the mastermind behind “La Linea” (The Line), and asked the judge to order a trial on charges of illicit association and graft.
To prove their case they presented 77 wiretap conversations that were recorded over multiple days, as well as documents seized in raids that detailed how the illegal operations were carried out.
Prosecutors said in the wiretaps, the codename No. 1 was reference to Perez Molina, and that former Vice President Roxana Baldetti was No. 2.
"The people under the 1 and 2 received 50 percent, and the 1 and 2 (themselves) received the other 50 percent" of the bribe money, claimed prosecutor Jose Antonio Morales.
Guatemala’s former vice-president Roxana Baldetti, who is also in prison facing charges for involvement in the corruption scheme, resigned on May 8 after her former personal secretary, who remains a fugitive, was named as the alleged ringleader of the scheme. Baldetti also says she is innocent.
Perez Molina resigned as president on Thursday hours after a Guatemalan judge issued an arrest warrant for him, and Vice President Alejandro Maldonado was sworn in later in the day as the country's new leader.
This is the first time in the country’s history that an incumbent president faces legal prosecution.
The country's business leaders and Guatemala’s National Council of Bishops among other influential groups in the country had all urged Perez Molina to step down.
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