Guatemala City, Jan 6 (EFE).- Two officials with the Guatemalan Immigration Institute (IGM) were arrested Sunday for preventing entry into the country by the investigator of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Colombia’s Yilen Osorio.
The Public Ministry identified the pair of officials as the IGM delegates at the La Aurora International Airport: Irma Cruz Suntecun Tesucun and Miguel Antonio Cantoral Davila.
They were arrested for being in violation of a resolution issued by Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras.
Osorio has been at the airport since late on Saturday.
Porras on Sunday ordered prosecutors to arrest anyone failing to comply with the resolutions regarding CICIG issued by the Constitutional Court, the country’s top judicial body.
The Constitutional Court ordered the IGM to allow Osorio’s entry into Guatemala within one hour after being notified to do so.
CICIG is a United Nations body charged with investigating and prosecuting serious crime in Guatemala.
Meanwhile, Guatemala’s 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchu, said at a press conference earlier on Sunday that it was “illegal” to “kidnap” an international official and that officials of the Morales government were implicated in the crime, and she called upon the international community to “seek mechanisms to condemn Guatemala because it violated many rules” by prohibiting Osorio’s entry.
Some 20 organizations and indigenous municipalities had called the decision to bar entry to Osorio “shameful” and demanded that Porras investigate the matter and order the arrest of Cantoral Davila and Cruz Suntecun.
So far, there has been no statement released by the government of Jimmy Morales regarding the resolutions of the AG Office or the Constitutional Court.
In August 2017, a crisis erupted between the Morales government and CICIG, but specifically with CICIG Commissioner Ivan Velasquez, who last September was prohibited from entering the Central American country for his “interference” in internal matters and because the government considered him a threat to Guatemala’s peace and security.
CICIG has investigated key members of the Guatemalan government, along with Morales’ son and his brother, although they have denied accusations of corruption.