Aifán, 46, is the choose of Guatemala’s high-risk court docket, which handles the nation’s largest corruption and legal circumstances, together with a number of indictments concentrating on politicians and rich enterprise executives. She has collected witness testimony alleging that President Alejandro Giammattei funded his marketing campaign with $2.6 million in bribes from highly effective building corporations. (He has denied the allegations.)
Aifán is among the many ever-shrinking group of Guatemalan judges and prosecutors dealing with such circumstances who haven’t been fired or arrested or fled the nation.
The Biden administration has searched desperately for companions in Central America who may help root out corruption and enhance governance, partially in an effort to discourage migration to the U.S. border. However that quest has largely been thwarted. Many high officers in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are at present blocked from touring to america as a result of they’ve been accused of corruption. Assaults by high-ranking officers on the judiciaries in these three international locations have exploded.
Ask a U.S. official to call high-profile Guatemalan allies within the combat towards corruption and the record usually begins and ends with Aifán. Final yr, first girl Jill Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced her with the State Division’s Worldwide Girls of Braveness award.
“Regardless of the sturdy opposition she has confronted all through her tenure, Decide Aifán has grow to be an icon in Guatemala within the combat towards corruption,” they stated.
However when Aifán returned from Washington, the threats towards her solely escalated. There have been moments when it felt virtually inevitable that she can be eliminated, or worse.
“What energy do I wield as a person within the face of legal constructions that may give you $10 million in bribes?” she stated this month in an interview in her workplace. “They’ve the ability to construct a military. Whereas we’ve got issues with private safety, they’re those with political energy.”
So many Guatemalan judges and prosecutors have sought asylum in america amid threats towards their lives that they’ve shaped a WhatsApp group in Washington. The group has a minimum of 10 members, all judges and particular prosecutors. Its title: “Dignity.”
Just lately, a number of extra Guatemala judges met with U.S. and U.N. officers to hunt their help within the occasion that they felt the necessity to flee the nation. Aifán was amongst them.
Greater than a dozen instances, Guatemala’s legal professional common and different members of the nation’s political and enterprise elite have tried to revoke Aifán’s judicial immunity, which might permit the federal government to jail her. Aifán says she has discovered recording units planted in her workplace. She’s been adopted repeatedly. Her safety element ultimately traced the surveillance drone outdoors her workplace to a municipal authorities workplace.
Colleagues and buddies have urged she go away the nation.
“For her to remain within the nation is to place her life in threat. These individuals are able to something,” stated Carlos Ruano, the vp of Guatemalan Affiliation of Judges for Integrity. Aifán is the affiliation’s president.
“She’s the final impediment going through these in energy,” stated Juan Francisco Sandoval, the previous particular prosecutor for impunity, who fled to america final yr. “That’s why they’re so determined to take away her.”
Her requests for extra armed guards — she has two — have been rejected by the Guatemalan legal professional common, María Consuelo Porras, herself one of many officers on the U.S. State Division’s record of “undemocratic and corrupt actors.”
The record of people that have backed makes an attempt to strip Aifán’s immunity is a who’s who of the Guatemalan elite, a lot of them defendants in her court docket. One is Moisés Galindo, a former navy official accused of cash laundering in a case involving Guatemala’s jail system. One other is the previous deputy of Guatemala’s congress, Armando Escribá, accused of corruption and cash laundering in one other of Aifán’s circumstances. Galindo and Escribá have denied wrongdoing. They didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Ricardo Méndez Ruiz, a right-wing politician who was additionally included on the State Division’s record of undemocratic and corrupt actors, referred to as Aifán a “hazard to society.” He, too, has backed efforts to strip Aifán of her immunity, after his group tried and did not hinder a case involving former navy officers accused of violence, intimidation and harassment of corruption investigators. Méndez didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Porras, an in depth ally of the president, has launched her personal effort to strip Aifán of judicial immunity. Consultants say that effort is linked to Aifán’s work on a case involving how corruption influenced the collection of judges on Guatemala’s court docket of appeals. Porras’ workplace issued a press release final month accusing Aifán of “abuse of authority.”
Requested for remark, Porras’ workplace stated it didn’t “conduct investigations primarily based on political issues. What we pursue is an goal and neutral investigation.”
After the Guatemalan authorities shuttered a U.N.-backed Worldwide Fee towards Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, in 2019, a lot of its circumstances remained energetic in Aifán’s court docket, the place she refused to dismiss them.
No less than eight officers who labored for CICIG are at present in exile in america. Its former head, Leily Santizo, was arrested by Guatemalan police final week. One other former prosecutor who labored with CICIG, Eva Sosa, was arrested on Tuesday. The federal government has not introduced fees in both case.
When President Biden took workplace, his administration tried to rally behind unbiased judges and prosecutors who remained within the nation. It made related efforts in Honduras and El Salvador, the place U.S. officers additionally see hyperlinks between judicial impunity, corruption and the stream of migrants.
However since final yr, judges and prosecutors in all three of these international locations have come underneath assault from authorities officers, and america has struggled to seek out methods to insulate them.
In January, following a renewed marketing campaign to revoke Aifán’s judicial immunity, america orchestrated a marketing campaign of its personal in her protection. The State Division referred to as the try “a blatant effort to hinder investigations into corruption and an affront to the integrity of Guatemala’s highest courts.”
“This motion towards an internationally acknowledged unbiased choose weakens a significant pillar of Guatemala’s democracy and judicial system,” officers stated.
Samantha Energy, the administrator of USAID, referred to as the transfer a “clear reprisal for [Aifán’s] independence and braveness in protection of accountability and the rule of regulation.”
Earlier, the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala had tweeted photographs of Aifán assembly with the U.S. ambassador.
She has blended emotions about such messages of public help.
“On one hand, the eye does supply some safety,” Aifán stated. “However alternatively it calls extra consideration to the work I’m doing, and with that, generally, comes extra issues.”
She spoke together with her household about which strategy made extra sense. Ought to she go into hiding, or search extra consideration, within the hope that U.S. help would possibly deter would-be attackers?
“We analyzed it. We determined I needs to be extra public. The truth is that individuals don’t hate me due to the great issues the People and different embassies say about me, however as a result of I’m an impediment to their private pursuits.”
Messages of protection haven’t helped Aifán’s colleagues. Sandoval fled the nation final yr per week after Vice President Harris visited and introduced renewed help for his workplace.
Porras, one such official, dismissed the U.S. allegations as obstructive. She launched one other effort to strip Aifán of her immunity on Wednesday.
Talking on nationwide tv, Porras stated she was following “the letter of the regulation.” She made reference to a confidential case concerning “judicial co-option and corruption.” The case led to the arrest and detention this month of Santizo and Sosa, the previous prosecutors.
“We will probably be requesting the removing of immunity of Decide [Aifán] for her potential participation in stated unlawful motion,” Porras stated.
“Beneath the management of Legal professional Basic Consuelo Porras,” the message learn, “the general public ministry used searches and arrests primarily based on sealed indictments and selectively leaked case info with the obvious intent to single out and punish Guatemalans who’re combating impunity and selling transparency and accountability.”
Aifán had heard the identical threats repeatedly, coming from probably the most highly effective individuals in Guatemala. She was additionally accustomed to the phrases of help from america that adopted, well-meaning however principally inconsequential.
That sequence left her, as soon as once more, feeling helpless.
“What can Erika Aifán do within the face of those highly effective legal constructions,” Aifán requested aloud, “within the face of the state which may use its energy towards me, underneath the guise of the regulation?”
