Guatemala has asked the National High Court to send them to them in order to dump the required information and send it
MADRID, 5 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The investigation carried out by the judge of the National High Court (AN) Manuel García Castellón on the alleged assignment of the brothers Ángel and Álvaro Pérez Maura to commissioner José Manuel Villarejo to prevent the extradition of the former to Guatemala is currently pending some storage devices –hard drives, pen drives, etc– that the Central American nation has asked to be sent from Spain to store the requested information there and send it.
The starting point of this separate piece of the ‘Villarejo case’, called ‘Pit’, is located in 2016, when Guatemala asked Spain to hand over Pérez Maura, accused of paying bribes of up to 30 million dollars to high officials of the country Iberoamerican, including former president Otto Pérez Molina and his vice president Roxana Baldetti, to obtain the award of an infrastructure in Puerto Quetzal.
According to the judicial account, the Pérez Maura would then have gone to Villarejo to stop the extradition of Ángel. For this commission, baptized as ‘Pit’ -hence the name of the separate piece-, the business group of the then commissioner, CENYT, would have pocketed 7.4 million euros.
Initially, the Spanish investigation focused on ‘Pit’, but when the National High Court rejected Pérez Maura’s extradition to Guatemala in 2018 for being a Spanish citizen, it opened the door for him to be tried in Spain for the crimes he was accused of there. .
In response, the head of the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 assumed in April 2021 the case directed in the Latin American country against Pérez Maura for alleged crimes of illicit association, fraud and bribery to conclude the investigation phase and, where appropriate, proceed on trial.
Since then, García Castellón has requested various information from the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office. Last March, almost a year after submitting the first rogatory commission, he received the requested documentation by diplomatic bag.
But the legal sources consulted by Europa Press indicate that it is still waiting to receive much more, a pending procedure because, as the Guatemalan authorities have transferred to the AN, they do not have enough computer devices to dump the required information, so They have asked the Spanish court to send them to them.
The same sources point out to this news agency that the Guatemalan derivative is the last fringe to be tied before ending the instruction phase of this separate piece number 4 of ‘Tándem’.
In one of the last proceedings, on October 21, the judge heard businessman William Anthony Schwank, claimed by Guatemala as an alleged intermediary of an illegal commission for the expansion of Puerto Quetzal.
Schwank told the instructor that Ángel Pérez Maura paid him between 1,500 and 2,000 euros per month, through Villarejo’s collaborators, in exchange for not collaborating with the Guatemalan Justice, which was also persecuting the Spanish businessman, according to sources familiar with the statement.
Questioned directly about Villarejo, he clarified that he had no contact with him. Apparently, his link with the business group of the now-retired commissioner was former police officer Antonio Bonilla, whom he says he heard about a “boss.”
Schwank, who already appeared in court on March 11 but then availed himself of his right not to testify, alleging that he was immersed in an extradition process, explained in this second statement that he had decided to speak now because he is terrified due to the interests politicians who assure that they interfere in the Guatemalan investigation and that he fears possible reprisals.
