Free Republic

Guatemala Murder Scandal Could Threaten the PresidencyThe scandal surrounding accusations that Guatemala's president orchestrated the murder of a prominent lawyer is intensifying  deepening divisions in a country still recovering from a 36-year civil war. It is also, according to some analysts, handing the country its greatest threat to democracy since that war ended in 1996. Tens of thousands of Guatemalans have taken to the streets since a video emerged in which Rodrigo Rosenberg, the lawyer, accused Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and three others of murder and corruption. Mr. Rosenberg, who was shot dead while riding his bike on May...

Two Guatemalan brothers who allegedly helped a prominent lawyer organise his own murder, and then blame the president of Guatemala for the crime, have turned themselves in. Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz were said to have hired a contract killer to murder Rodrigo Rosenberg. An international commission found in January that Mr Rosenberg had organised his own killing. He is said to have wanted to highlight unsolved murders in Guatemala. Before he was shot dead in May 2009, Mr Rosenberg had warned in a video that he would be murdered on the orders of President Alvaro Colom. Mr Colom was...

Several have sent word that a YouTube video of recently assassinated lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg has sent Guatemala into a tailspin. The video of Rosenberg claims that if you are watching, he has been murdered by President Alvaro Colom with help from presidential secretary Gustavo Alejos. "The video spread across the Internet after family members handed it out during Rosenberg's funeral on Monday. In the 18-minute tape, a seemingly calm Rosenberg, sitting behind a desk and microphone, alleges that Colom, the First Lady and two associates were involved in murder, corruption and money laundering. The group, he says, filtered public funds...