The Third Chamber of the Court of Appeals annulled the arrest warrants against 23 people, among them several former prosecutors of the Public Ministry, including the former attorney general, Thelma Aldana, and the former head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Iván Velásquez.
The Chamber had issued the arrest warrants exceeding its jurisdiction, as the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) had concluded last April.
The more than 20 beneficiaries of the new resolution were implicated in the Fraudulent Agreements case.
The Chamber in its resolution recognizes that it issued the arrest warrants and exceeded its limits, since this is the responsibility of the court controlling the case, which did not happen, which is why “it exceeded its limits in the exercise of its legal powers by illegally issuing arrest warrants without having legal jurisdiction to issue them.”
Regarding the resolution, Juan Francisco Sandoval, former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office against Impunity (Feci), currently outside the country, said that it is “a very important resolution” because it confirms that the arrest warrants were issued without the Chamber having jurisdiction to do so.
“Personally, I receive this resolution with satisfaction, because it vindicates a position that I held from the beginning: that the persecution against me and other former prosecutors lacked legal basis and responded to an instrumentalization of the justice system,” said Sandoval.
The former head of the Feci announced that the resolution does not mean the cessation of the processes against him, because “there are still open processes and it will be necessary for all actions to be conducted in accordance with the law.”
*With information from EVelyn Boche Ventura