Guatemalan police arrest ex-president wanted in US on money laundering charges

Guatemalan police arrest ex-president wanted in US

GUATEMALA CITY — Police captured ex-President Alfonso Portillo at a beach preparing to flee Guatemala by boat Tuesday, a day after U.S. authorities charged him with laundering money stolen from foreign donations to buy children’s books.

Dozens of police, soldiers and federal agents arrested Portillo during a raid on a house in the coastal province of Izabal, said Carlos Castresana, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a U.N. agency created to battle corruption and crime in this Central American nation.

“They had hired a boat to leave from a beach at 9 a.m., but before that, police and soldiers surrounded the house where he was hiding out,” Castresana said. Portillo, 58, was believed to be heading to neighboring Belize.

Attorney General Amilcar Velasquez said authorities had been following Portillo for four days before collaring him the day after a U.S. indictment was unsealed in federal court in New York charging Portillo embezzled $1.5 million in donations from Taiwan intended to buy school library books.

Portillo allegedly endorsed checks drawn from a New York bank and deposited them in a Miami account. The money then allegedly was transferred to a Paris account in the name of his ex-wife and daughter.

The indictment also alleges Portillo conspired with two members of the Guatemalan military in 2001 to embezzle millions from the government. Some of the money was allegedly used to buy expensive cars and watches. He has denied the allegations.

The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Portillo was arrested on a U.S. extradition warrant, winning American praise.

“The precedent this sets — that nobody is above the law — is extremely important for the rule of law,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.

But Portillo may not be heading to the United States any time soon.

The former president’s lawyer, Telesforo Guerra, said he will fight to enforce a 2008 law that requires suspects be tried for charges they face in Guatemala before being extradited.

“We are going to prove that this is a political trial. We have proof,” Guerra told Radio Sonora.

Portillo claims a prosecutor tried to persuade him to accept extradition, but he replied: “I want to die in Guatemala.” A group of about 50 supporters gathered outside the main court building in Guatemala City to demand his release.

Portillo served as president from 2000 to 2004 before fleeing to Mexico, where he got a work visa and began working as a financial adviser for a construction materials company.

He was extradited from Mexico to Guatemala in 2008 to face embezzlement charges at home, and has been free on bail while that trial continues.

Velasquez said prosecutors would try to start the process of getting judicial approval for extradition to the United States while Portillo’s trial in Guatemala proceeds. But that trial might take years.

While running for president in Guatemala in 1999, Portillo acknowledged he had killed two of his former students while a professor in the Mexican state of Guerrero in 1982.

He said the killings were in self-defense and he fled the state because he could not get a fair trial. The case has since been closed, and he can no longer be charged in those killings.