The US State Department added almost 40 individuals from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, together with former presidents and judges, to a listing revealed on Wednesday of “corrupt and undemocratic actors.”
Two former Salvadoran presidents – Mauricio Funes, who served from 2009 to 2014, and his successor Salvador Sanchez, whom Washington hyperlinks to corruption, cash laundering and embezzlement of public funds – had been added to the listing.
Funes and Sanchez, who each confronted authorized proceedings in El Salvador, now dwell in Nicaragua and can’t be extradited after receiving citizenship from the federal government of President Daniel Ortega.
“Corruption, a root cause of irregular migration, harms our national security,” mentioned Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, as he offered the report.
Guatemalan targets embody Fredy Orellana, the decide who ordered the suspension of an anti-graft get together after its presidential candidate, Bernardo Arevalo, garnered sufficient votes to participate in an Aug. 20 presidential run-off.
The so-called Engel listing additionally options judges and prosecutors accused of persecuting journalists in Guatemala.
Guatemala’s authorities in the meantime rejected the accusations on Wednesday, labeling the report “used by the United States to impose its jurisdiction on people abroad, as despicable.”
It contains ex-officials from the federal government of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was extradited to the United States over drug trafficking hyperlinks.
Politicians from Honduras’ opposition Liberal Party additionally seem, together with Liberal chief Yani Rosenthal, beforehand convicted of cash laundering within the United States. Rosenthal responded in a tweet that he “categorically rejects the unfounded accusations made in the list.”
The Nicaraguan part contains all the nation’s parliamentary leaders, barring its president, who Washington has already sanctioned, and a number of other judges and administrators of Nicaragua’s cash laundering watchdog. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
