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Guatemala’s Supreme Court has rejected a request by President Bernardo Arevalo to begin proceedings to strip a top prosecutor accused of plotting to oust him of her immunity, a state lawyer’s office said Friday.
Consuelo Porras, listed as corrupt and undemocratic by the US Justice Department, was appointed by Arevalo’s predecessor and led efforts to have his election victory last year overturned.
She has refused Arevalo’s requests to hand in her resignation after he took office in January.
In February, Arevalo’s government asked the Supreme Court to revoke Porras’s immunity from prosecution for alleged breach of duties.
“We were notified (by the Supreme Court) of the rejection” of the request, the office of the procurator-general, who acts as the state’s attorney, told AFP.
It said it was studying the verdict before deciding on its next move.
Former lawmaker, diplomat and sociologist Arevalo pulled off a major upset when he swept from obscurity to win elections in August last year, wooing voters weary of graft in one of Latin America’s poorest nations.
His anti-corruption crusade put him in the crosshairs of prosecutors accused of graft themselves and closely aligned with an entrenched political and economic ruling class.
They tried to overturn the election results and strip Arevalo, who enjoys strong support from the international community, of immunity from prosecution.
Arevalo has repeatedly denounced a “slow-motion coup d’etat.”
He has no legal power to fire Porras, who was appointed in 2022 by then-president Alejandro Giammattei to serve until 2026.
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Publish date : 2024-08-30 16:21:00
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