FILE PHOTO: Renewed Democratic Liberation (LIDER) party’s presidential candidate Manuel Baldizon addresses supporters during a political rally in Villa Nueva, on the outskirts of Guatemala City, September 4, 2015. REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez/File Photo
January 21, 2018
By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Former Guatemalan presidential candidate Manuel Baldizon, who is wanted on graft charges, has sought asylum in the United States after he was detained while trying to enter without a visa, authorities in the Central American nation said.
Baldizon, a wealthy businessman who ran for president twice, was detained at the airport in Miami on Saturday after flying in from the Dominican Republic, prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Yesenia Enriquez said.
Guatemala’s charges against Baldizon are part of a giant corruption probe involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht SA, according to the prosecutor’s office. The scandal has claimed high-level political scalps across Latin America.
Baldizon requested asylum in the United States, Guatemala’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that its consulate in Miami was communicating with U.S. authorities who will decide whether to grant his request.
Enriquez said it was unclear which U.S. federal department was holding Baldizon. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Marshals did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Baldizon is wanted in Guatemala on charges of illicit association, bribery and money laundering, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The statement said former Infrastructure Minister and brief presidential candidate Alejandro Sinibaldi was also wanted on suspected corruption charges stemming from the Odebrecht investigation, and was now a fugitive.
The prosecutor’s office did not give any information on the link with Odebrecht, which has admitted to paying multimillion-dollar bribes across Latin America and has already spent $3.5 billion for settlements in the United States, Brazil and Switzerland.
The prosecutor’s office carried out 10 raids on Saturday and arrested three people as part of the Odebrecht investigation, the statement added.
In 2016, the head of Guatemala’s special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office told Reuters he had already been investigating Odebrecht’s bribes to a government official, and President Jimmy Morales said his administration would check all of the company’s contracts.
Guatemala has long struggled with political corruption.
In August, Morales came under fire for attempting to expel a United Nations-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala prosecutor seeking to put him on trial for alleged corruption.
The investigation into allegations of illicit campaign financing, which followed separate graft probes into members of the president’s family, had threatened to condemn Morales to impeachment.
With powers to prepare crime and corruption cases, the commission was instrumental in removing former President Otto Perez Molina from office in 2015 after identifying him as a key player in an alleged multibillion-dollar graft scheme.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
