An official close to Guatemalan president Bernardo Arevalo was detained Tuesday as part of a controversial investigation into his political party by a judge under US sanctions for allegedly undermining democracy.
Ligia Hernandez, head of the Central American country’s Victim’s Institute (IAV), was arrested by order of judge Fredy Orellana and was accused of “the possible commission of the crime of unregistered electoral financing,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity initiated an investigation against Arevalo’s Semilla party in 2023 after his shock presidential election win.
The case is based on alleged anomalies during the formation of the party, including an alleged “money laundering” scheme for which the prosecutor’s office has also sought to strip Arevalo of his immunity.
Arevalo’s administration condemned the arrest of Hernandez in a statement Tuesday, saying it was the result of “charges from spurious cases, stemming from investigations shrouded in secrecy and without adherence to our laws.”
The investigations and “the actions of Judge Orellana do not have any credibility, and for this reason we are sure of her innocence and that of any other defendant in the cases that these agencies raise,” the statement read.
Semilla has also had its registration suspended by Orellana, who has been sanctioned by the United States for having “undermined democratic processes or institutions by authorizing unsubstantiated, politically motivated criminal charges against journalists.”
Hernandez, 42, was Semilla’s deputy alongside Arevalo between 2020 and 2024 and on February 1 was appointed by the president to head the IAV, which assists people in accessing justice and receiving dignified reparations.
“This desperate attack (by the prosecutor’s office) represents nothing more than the perverse desire to silence, oppress, extinguish, any attempt to recover our country, which is still captured by a small group of criminals,” said Hernandez minutes before being detained in her office, in a video published on the social network X.
Arevalo campaigned on an anti-corruption platform and overcame multiple attempts by the political establishment to block his inauguration.
He has proposed reforms to remove the country’s top prosecutor, Consuelo Porras, whom he accuses of plotting to oust him.
Porras is also under US and EU sanctions for corruption and was appointed by Arevalo’s predecessor. She led the efforts to have Arevalo’s election victory overturned.
Porras has asked the country’s highest court to prosecute the president for attempting to remove her.
