Guatemala’s attorney general, Consuelo Porras, said Thursday that the law must be applied to everyone regardless of her position, in a message apparently addressed to the president, Bernardo Arévalo.
“While there are some people who do not want to be investigated, here the law is complied with because it is complied with for everyone regardless of their position or condition,” Porras said when presenting an annual management report at a closed-door event broadcast on social networks.
Everyone “must be subject to the rule of law,” he added with a strong tone the prosecutor sanctioned by the United States and the European Union, which considers it “corrupt.”
Since before it took power in January, the Prosecutor’s Office has asked the justice system to remove Arévalo’s immunity to prosecute him for his support for the occupation of a public university and of course money laundering in his Seed party. The training was suspended by a judge at the request of prosecutors.
Porras jealed the presidential transition with his controversial investigations against Semilla and his call to annul the 2023 elections, won by Arévalo with his promise to fight corruption, one of the country’s evils.
The prosecution raided election court offices and seized voting records. His maneuvers were described by Arévalo as an attempt to “coup d’état” for the fear of the political-economic elites that he would assume power.
The president lacks the power to remove Porras, but has pushed for action to get his impeachment. On May 6, Arévalo personally handed Congress a bill to obtain the removal of the prosecutor, who has a mandate until 2026.
Only prosecutors attended Porras’ accountability in the lounge of a tourist hotel in Antigua.
This article has been translated after first appearing in Diario El Mundo