Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera

Alfonso Portillo Cabrera

Alfonso Antonio Portillo Cabrera (born September 24, 1951 in Zacapa ) is a Guatemalan politician . From 2000 to 2004 he was President of Guatemala.

Life

After studying economics at the autonomous state university of Mexico as well as law and social sciences, he then worked as a lecturer at various Latin American universities. From 1991 to 1994 he was Director General of the National Monetary Authority, and from 1992 of the Institute for Social and Political Studies (IGESP).

He joined the Christian Democratic Party ( PDCG ) and was its general secretary from 1992 to 1994 . In 1994 he became a member of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala and chairman of the parliamentary group. Because of a falling out with the party leadership, he left the PDCG in 1995 and joined the right-wing Republican Front of Guatemala ( FRG ) of former President Efraín Ríos Montt . He was a candidate in the presidential election that took place in the same year, but was narrowly defeated in the runoff election to Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen. Four years later he was able to prevail in the presidential election on December 26, 1999 in the runoff election and was sworn in as head of state and government on January 14, 2000. His successor was Óscar Berger Perdomo in 2004 .

After the end of his tenure, he left Guatemala for Mexico. In Guatemala, the public prosecutor was investigating suspected corruption against him and applied for his extradition from Mexico. This was approved by the Mexican government in 2006, against which Portillo appealed. In January 2008 the Mexican Supreme Court ruled against him and on October 7, 2008 he was extradited to Guatemala. He was accused of embezzling 120 million Quetzales (around 11.6 million euros) during his tenure . He rejected these allegations and accused Óscar Berger's successor government to have persecuted him politically in this way.

In May 2011, the case against him was dropped in Guatemala for lack of evidence.

At the end of August 2011, the Constitutional Court of Guatemala decided to extradite Alfonso Portillo to the United States ; Portillo was finally delivered on May 24, 2013. The US accused him of money laundering amounting to US $ 70 million. On May 22, 2014, Portillo was sentenced to 70 months in prison by a Manhattan federal court . a. for accepting bribes from Taiwan to prevent Guatemala from recognizing the People's Republic of China , of which US $ 2.5 million was transferred to private accounts in the United States.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ PGN apelará fallo de libertad bajo fianza a favor de Portillo. Prensa Libre, October 8, 2008; archived from the original on October 11, 2008 ; Retrieved October 8, 2008 (Spanish).  
2. ↑ Extradited Guatemalan ex-president says home to end persecution. AFP , October 7, 2008, archived from the original on October 8, 2008 ; Retrieved October 8, 2008 (Spanish).  
3. ↑ ^{a b} Toni Keppler: Ex-President is extradited to the USA. In: the daily newspaper . August 29, 2011, accessed August 30, 2011 . 
4. ↑ Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 24, 2014, p. 5.

predecessor	Office	successor
Alvaro Arzú Irigoyen	President of Guatemala January 14, 2000-14. January 2004	Óscar Berger Perdomo