Guatemala City (EFE).- Guatemala’s Public Prosecutor’s Office arrested on Wednesday the Deputy Minister for Sustainable Development Luis Pacheco on charges of “terrorism.”
Pacheco was a leader of the Indigenous organization of the 48 cantons of Totonicapán, and back in 2023, led protests against the Attorney General, María Consuelo Porras, for her attempts to overturn the results of the general elections that gave a victory to President Bernardo Arévalo de León.
The deputy minister was arrested early on Wednesday’s in a raid on his home in Guatemala City by the Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime and handed over to the judicial authorities, according to the National Civil Police (PNC).
The Public Prosecutor’s Office charged Pacheco with terrorism and illegal association without officially informing the reasons behind these charges, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office has stated that the court proceedings are sealed.
“We are outraged as a government, we are outraged as citizens, because what is happening is an attack against democracy, on the resistance fight that the people made in 2023 to prevent these criminals from stealing the elections and mocking the popular will,” President Arévalo said at a press conference in a hotel in the capital.
Samuel Pérez, an official congressman and member of the Movimiento Semilla party, also described the official’s arrest as a “desperate act.”
According to a judiciary source interviewed by EFE, who requested anonymity, the deputy minister’s arrest correlates to the demonstrations that paralyzed the country between October and November 2023.
Pacheco led the demonstrators who camped out for over 100 nights in front of the Attorney General’s Office in response to attempts to prevent Arévalo de Leon from taking office.
The attempts led by Porras through the Attorney General’s Office were considered a coup by the Organization of American States and the European Union.EFE
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