CICIG on the Defenseive

CICIG's string of bad news continues.  Francisco Dall'Anese recently accused the Guatemalan Government of impeding justice in the country by sabotaging efforts to have Carlos Vielmann extradited from Spain where he is supposed to face charges of extrajudicial killing.

Guatemala's institutions "are working to make justice impossible and to let impunity continue to reign," Francisco Dall'Anese said in an e-mail, responding to questions from The Associated Press.

Spanish authorities released Vielmann last Tuesday after the Guatemalan government failed to formally request his extradition.  Carmen Aida Ibarra of the Pro-Justice Movement in Guatemala said that "The entire society, the whole country, is being denied the truth about what happened in Pavon" because the case was "aborted due to the negligence of judicial officials and the Foreign Ministry." 

Guatemalan authorities, on the other hand, blamed bureaucracy and the difficulty in getting several signatures from the Spanish embassy in Guatemala.  While Vielmann has been released by Spanish authorities, Guatemala still has until December 13th to formally request his extradition.  From what I can tell, they'll just have to take Vielmann him into custody once again.   Amnesty International has called on the Guatemalan government to bring Vielmann to justice.

Meanwhile, the trial of former president Alfonso Portillo has been delayed until January at the earliest, the Guatemalan Human Rights Procurator Sergio Morales is asking for Dall'Anese to investigate his predecessor, Carlos Castresana, and we might have some news tomorrow about a CICIG investigator who is accused of sexually harassing a subordinate.