A Guatemalan court has issued an arrest warrant for former attorney general and presidential candidate, Thelma Aldana, on charges including embezzlement, local media reported on Wednesday.
“Aldana, who as attorney general took on corruption and power abuse in Guatemala, has been charged with embezzlement, lying and tax fraud,’’ newspaper Prensa Libre reported.
On Tuesday, the former attorney general said that electoral authorities registered her as a presidential candidate for the Semilla party, giving her immunity.
“Today was a special day; we were registered as candidates and won the first battle against the PactoDeCorruptos corruption pact,’’ Aldana wrote on Twitter.
She employed the label used by the Guatemalan press to describe reforms to protect politicians accused of corruption that Congress tried to pass, sparking protests.
“They cannot detain us,’’ she added.
In 2015, an investigation by Aldana and Colombian lawyer,Ivan Velasquez, into a criminal network in the Guatemalan state apparatus brought down former president Otto Perez Molina.
In August, Guatemala said it would withdraw in 2019 from the UN-backed independent International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), the UN-run organisation which was probing President Jimmy Morales’s campaign financing.
Guatemalan elections are set to take place on June 16.
