The State Department mentioned on Wednesday that Alejandro Giammattei, Guatemala’s president till a tumultuous switch of energy this week, was barred from getting into the United States due to what officers mentioned was info indicating that he had accepted bribes.
The announcement signaled that the United States was transferring shortly to help the anticorruption drive led by Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo. Guatemala was just lately engulfed in protests over makes an attempt to forestall Mr. Arévalo from taking workplace, and Mr. Giammattei refused to seem at his successor’s inauguration on Monday.
“No one, especially a public official, is above the law,” said Brian Nichols, the highest State Department official for the Western Hemisphere.
The Treasury Department additionally introduced sanctions on Wednesday against Alberto Pimentel Mata, a former vitality minister in Mr. Giammattei’s authorities, in connection to Mr. Pimentel Mata’s taking bribes and his involvement in quite a few corruption schemes associated to authorities contracts and licenses, officers mentioned.
Last weekend, U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied entry in Miami to one in all Mr. Giammattei’s sons, and expelled him on Monday, according to Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah and a supporter of Mr. Giammattei.
Taken collectively, the strikes mirror how the United States authorities is making an attempt to stem corruption and impunity in Guatemala, Central America’s most populous nation.
While Mr. Giammattei was president, from 2020 to 2024, an alliance of prosecutors, judges, members of Congress and different political figures retaliated in opposition to officers concerned in a pioneering United Nations-backed anticorruption initiative.
“The State Department has credible information indicating that Giammattei accepted bribes in exchange for the performance of his public functions during his tenure as president,” Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman, mentioned in an announcement.
The former president is now “generally ineligible” to enter the United States, Mr. Miller added, although he didn’t present particular details about the bribes Mr. Giammattei was accused of accepting.
The former president was not instantly out there for remark.
Accounts of Mr. Giammattei’s involvement in corruption schemes have been circulating for years in Guatemala. In 2021, prosecutors opened an investigation into claims that Russian residents paid a bribe to Mr. Giammattei in connection to a mining challenge, after an anticorruption prosecutor obtained testimony from a witness who mentioned he had gone to Mr. Giammattei’s residence and delivered a rolled-up carpet filled with money.
While in workplace, Mr. Giammattei denied he had been bribed in relation to the Russian challenge.
Inquiries into these claims didn’t advance a lot in Guatemala’s opaque judicial system. In the case involving the carpet filled with money, the prosecutor wanting into the matter was fired and compelled into exile within the United States.
The State Department designation of Mr. Giammattei comes amid different American efforts to counter criminal activity by political leaders in Central America. The United States in 2022 extradited Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, to face drug-trafficking expenses in New York.
Mr. Giammattei, who embraces staunchly conservative insurance policies, is considered as an ally amongst some political figures within the United States, similar to Mr. Lee and Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany through the Trump administration, who visited Guatemala final week in a present of help for Mr. Giammattei.
The United States introduced sanctions final month in opposition to Miguel Martínez, one in all Mr. Giammattei’s closest associates, as well as to visa restrictions on almost 300 Guatemalan residents, together with greater than 100 members of Congress, for his or her efforts to weaken Mr. Arévalo and hold him from being inaugurated.
Former presidents in Central America usually achieve immunity from prosecution within the area by being sworn in as members of the Central American Parliament. But that immunity doesn’t lengthen to the U.S. authorized system or to involvement in violating American legal guidelines. Mr. Giammattei joined the Central American Parliament shortly after his time period expired.
Jody García contributed reporting from Guatemala City.