Jody García and Nina Lakhani wrote in The Guardian, recently, on the case of Virginia Laparra, a leading senior anti-corruption prosecutor in Guatemala and the use of what is termed ‘lawfare’ being waged against anti-corruption members of the judiciary by corrupt elites.
A Guatemalan anti-corruption prosecutor has been locked up for six months in conditions “bordering on torture”, as the country’s ruling elite pursues a strategy to purge the justice system and derail corruption investigations against their allies.
Virginia Laparra, 42, a senior anti-corruption prosecutor, was accused of abuse of authority in apparent retaliation for reporting her suspicion that a judge had leaked sensitive details from a sealed corruption case to a colleague in 2017.
The judge, Lesther Castellanos, was sanctioned by a disciplinary board, but then filed a joint criminal complaint with the Foundation against Terrorism (FCT) – an extreme-right genocide denial group with a long track record of bringing spurious charges against prosecutors and judges considered adversaries.
The case against Laparra went nowhere until she was arrested in February. A court ordered pre-trial detention, and Laparra was sent from her home in the city of Quetzaltenango to a high-security prison in Guatemala City – 200 miles away from her children – where military commanders and former presidents are jailed for war crimes and corruption.
For the first five months of her detention, she was confined to a small, windowless cell for 23 hours a day – conditions which psychiatrists have told the court border on torture and have caused Laparra psychological damage.
The court has rejected repeated applications for Laparra to be released to house arrest, even though she is charged with a misdemeanour. Instead, the judge recently transferred Laparra to the Matamoros prison, another notorious facility where drug traffickers and gang leaders are held, claiming she was trying to “obstruct justice” by speaking to the media.
Human rights monitors say Laparra’s case is the most egregious in a series of targeted criminal cases against those involved in investigating high-level corruption in Guatemala.
You can read the full article, with links, here, Top corruption prosecutor held in jail as Guatemalan elite bids to purge foes.
There is also a piece previously published in El Faro English, including an audio, which will be of interest and can be found here, New Targets of Attorney General’s Lawfare against Guatemalan Justice.
Categories: Corruption, Criminalisation, Guatemala, Human Rights, Impunity, Justice, Military
Guatemala Solidarity Network 
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