A Guatemalan appeals court annulled the judicial cooperation agreement with Odebrecht, by which the Brazilian construction company returned to the country 17.9 million dollars (17 million euros) paid in bribes.
The decision was made in response to a request from one of the main defendants in the case, former Minister of Communications Alejandro Sinibaldi (2012-2014), accused of several multi-million dollar corruption cases during the government of Otto Pérez Molina (2012-2014). . 2014).2015).
Sinibaldi is accused of having received, between 2011 and 2013, almost 18 million dollars in bribes to favor the Brazilian company in the expansion and repair of a highway that was never completed.
The cooperation agreement between the Public Ministry and three former representatives of Odebrecht allowed to determine the way in which the bribery of local officials, including Sinibaldi, was organized.
However, with the decision of the appeals court, Sinibaldi can be acquitted of the charges against him in the Odebrecht case, although the Public Ministry can still appeal the decision.
The prosecutor in charge of the case, Rafael Curruchiche, accepted the decision and stressed that there were “illegalities” in the judicial cooperation agreement, according to a video released by the Public Ministry.
Former prosecutor Juan Francisco Sandoval, who originally dismantled the Odebrecht case in 2018, described as “unprecedented” that the Public Ministry “is celebrating a resolution – which is not final – that favored the main defendants in a corruption case.”
Sandoval has been in exile in the United States since September 2021, when he was fired by Attorney General Consuelo Porras, later sanctioned by Washington for “obstructing” justice in Guatemala.
When he turned himself in to the Guatemalan authorities in August 2020, after four years on the run, Sinibaldi promised to “in due course make known all those who participated in the Odebrecht case and all the leaders who benefited from the case.”
The former minister is accused of corruption in five cases, including an alleged millionaire embezzlement during the Pérez Molina government.
Sinibaldi ran in 2014 as the then-ruling Patriotic Party’s presidential candidate for the 2015 election, but eventually withdrew.
In the last three years, the authorities seized more than 30 properties that the former minister allegedly acquired with illicit funds.
According to a report by the US Department of Justice, Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company, paid $788 million (746 million euros) in bribes in some 12 Latin American countries, including Guatemala.
On June 2, the Portuguese Public Ministry raided the company Odebrecht Portugal, within the framework of the EDP process, which involves more than four million euros paid for the award by EDP of the Baixo Sabor dam to the Odebrecht/Lena consortium.
Source: Observadora
