Guatemala: murdered lawyer planned his own death

An investigation by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has concluded that local attorney and activist Rodrigo Rosenberg planned his own assassination. The UN-affiliated agency has therefore apparently exonerated President Alvaro Colom of any implication of complicity in the lawyer’s death.

Carlos Castresana said in January 12 press conference in Guatemala City that CICIG found that it was Rosenberg himself who “who decided to put an end to his life” by hiring assassins to shoot him down while riding his bicycle in a suburb on May 10, 2009. It was in a video produced by Rosenberg and released posthumously that he blamed President Colom and First Lady Sandra Torres de Colom.

Released just hours after his death, Rosenberg says on the video “If you are reading this message it is because I, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, was assassinated by the presidential private secretary, Gustavo Alejos and his partner Gregorio Valdez, with the approval of Mr. Alvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom.”

Some 300 offcials participated in the investigation that included analyzing more than 100,000 telephone calls intercepted from 14 different telephone numbers, according to investigator Castresana. Videos, photographs, and documents were also presented to support the CICIG’s conclusions.

Investigators also relied on testimony from two persons implicated in Rosenberg’s death, his cousins Franciso José Valdés Paíz and José Estuardo Valdés Paíz. It appears that the 47-year-old lawyer asked the pair to contract a hit-man to carry out the murder of an unknown extortionist. Allegedly, they did not know that the intended victim was Rosenberg himself. The Valdéz Paíz brothers are now charged as masterminds of the crime.

According to the CICIG, Rosenberg bought two mobile telephones with which he allegedly used to maintain the fiction that was being subjected to blackmail. Ultimately, a group led by William Santos Divas carried out Rosenberg’s plan for self-immolation with five gunshots on a Sunday morning.

Guatemalan authorities currently have charged 11 persons of interest, but only 8 have been arrested for involvement in the murder that galvanized Guatemala in repudiation of the wave of violence shaking the country. The Valdéz Paíz brothers, and their bodyguard, are currently on the run.

In the posthumous video, Rosenberg claimed that he had proof to show who had murdered his clients Khalil Musa and Marjorie Musa. However, CICIG president Castresana said that following a search of Rosenberg’s office and strongbox no damning evidence was found. Castresana claims that Rosenberg’s associates Luíz Mendizabal and Mario David García helped him to produce and distribute the video, but had recommended that he leave the country.

Still to be clarified is the case of the Musa couple. Castresana said that errors were made in an investigation into their murders. Looking into the case now will require “archaeology,” said Castresana. Another case centering on the murdered Rosenberg implicates President Colom’s aide, Gregorio Valdés, in official corruption involving government contracts for producing Guatemalan passports and national I.D. cards.

Investigator Castesana lauded the fallen Rosenberg saying that the attorney had no new evidence in the murder of Khalil and Marjorie Musa, and that “he was desperate and really believed what he said (in the video) was true. Therefore, he sacrificed his own life so that that the country might change.”