A Guatemalan court ordered this Wednesday the capture of the Brazilians Marcos de Cequeira Lima Machado and Luiz Antonio Mameri, both former directors of the construction company Odebrecht, involved in a corruption scheme in the Central American country.
Judge Juan José Jiménez, head of the “D” Higher Risk Court, declared the Brazilian businessmen in absentia and ordered their arrest because they did not appear for a summons this Wednesday at the Judicial Branch of Guatemala City.
The lawyers for the Brazilians requested the suspension of the hearing in order to study the accusation against the former Odebrecht leaders; however, their arguments were rejected by Judge Jiménez, who insisted that those involved had to be present.
Guatemalan prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche, sanctioned for corruption by the United States, accuses Lima Machado and Mameri of having received benefits from the extinct International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Cicig) in an abnormal way.
In 2022, Curruchiche annulled the testimonies that both Brazilians had provided in 2017, in which they accused former communications minister Alejandro Sinibaldi and former presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón of receiving bribes from Odebrecht for 18 million dollars in exchange for awarding projects to the Brazilian construction company. .
On January 11, Baldizón, convicted of money laundering in the United States, regained his freedom in Guatemala thanks to the annulment of the testimonies of Brazilian businessmen that link him to receiving million-dollar bribes between 2010 and 2011.
In addition, two weeks ago prosecutor Curruchiche warned that he was not ruling out legal action against the current Colombian Defense Minister, Iván Velásquez, for his alleged involvement in anomalies in the Odebrecht case, when he was director of Cicig (2013-2018).
The Odebrecht case is linked to international corruption investigations such as the Lava Jato cases, in Brazil, and the Odebrecht case in the United States, which investigates the payment of bribes in 12 Latin American countries.
In Guatemala, several experts warn that the current authorities of the Public Ministry (Prosecutor’s Office) are persecuting justice operators who in the past discovered criminal networks of corruption embedded in the State.
Source: EFE
Source: Gestion
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