8 convicted, sentenced in killing of lawyer whose pre-slaying video set off uproar

8 convicted in killing of Guatemalan lawyer

GUATEMALA CITY — A Guatemalan judge has convicted and sentenced eight men to prison for the 2009 killing of a prominent lawyer who accused the country’s president of his murder in a video made before his death.

Public protests erupted after the death and the release of Rodrigo Rosenberg’s video implicating the president if he were to be killed. But a United Nations investigation sanctioned by the government found that Rosenberg arranged his own slaying by contracting the hit men who killed him. Investigators said Rosenberg may have been motivated by personal problems.

Four of the accused men were sentenced to between 38 years and 48 years on homicide and other charges, and four other co-consipirators received eight-years sentences for “illegal association.”

But sentences for two of the men were reduced to two years and to 12 years in return for the suspects’ cooperation with prosecutors. Another suspect was released after turning state’s evidence.

The eight were members or collaborators of a gang of hit men that planned and carried out the killing, allegedly for a payment that originated with Rosenberg himself.

Two more men are facing charges of having arranged the payment to the killers.

The prosecution based its case in part on recorded telephone calls tying the suspects to the killing of Rosenberg, who was shot to death while riding his bicycle.

In a video distributed after his death, Rosenberg is seen saying, “If you are watching this message, it is because I was assassinated by President Alvaro Colom.”

Rosenberg, a 47-year-old corporate lawyer who served as assistant dean at a private university, claimed Colom’s administration was linked to a corruption scandal at a government bank and said any attack on him would be an attempt to cover that up.

The president denied any involvement, and his government has suggested that criminal or political interests were behind the video.