Guatemala, February 23, 2011. Salomón Abraham Molina Girón, a witness in the Portillo case, confirmed—from the District Court for the Southern District of New York—that GTQ 30 million (of the total of GTQ 120 million) was given to the former President of the National Mortgage Credit Bank (CHN), José Armando Llort Quiteño, who subsequently deposited the money at businesses and into accounts linked to him.

The witness provided his testimony via videoconference to the Eleventh Trial Court, where the trial is being held of former President Alfonso Portillo Cabrera and his former Ministers Eduardo Arévalo Lacs and Manuel Hiram Maza Castellanos (former Minister of Finance) on charges of misappropriating GTQ 120 million from the Ministry of National Defence (MDN) in 2001.

Salomón Abraham Molina Girón, who worked as assistant manager of finance at the CHN, described the manner in which the money was sent to José Armando Llort Quiteño, the people who transported the money, and where it was deposited.

The witness said that in 2001 the bank was facing serious financial problems because of the mismanagement of José Armando Llort Quiteño. Therefore Llort Quiteño asked to borrow GTQ 30 million from former President Portillo.

"I asked José Armando where the former President would procure the GTQ 30 million and he told me that they were doing some operations with the military and that I should prepare the bank's vault in order to store the money," he said.

He also said that the former security chiefs of former President Portillo, Jacobo Esdras Salán Sánchez and Napoleón Rojas Méndez, were responsible for transporting the GTQ 30 million on March 5, 6 and 9, 2001.

The first delivery of GTQ 10 million was made by Jacobo Esdras Salán Sánchez, who handed over the money in a number of boxes, which were then transferred by military personnel dressed as civilians. Salomón Abraham Molina Girón said that he counted the money with bank staff and noticed that the bills had Banco de Guatemala seals.

The witness said that the second delivery of GTQ 10 million had been made two days later by Napoleón Rojas Méndez, with whom he entered the vault and counted the money. "José Armando gave me instructions on where to deposit the money, and it was always deposited into accounts linked to him or his friends".

The final delivery of GTQ 10 million was made by Jacobo Esdras Salán Sánchez, who took the money to the aforementioned vault. The witness said he had not been present on that occasion to count the money, but the head of the vault told him via telephone that GTQ 10 million had been delivered.

Salomón Abraham Molina Girón said that on other occasions he saw José Armando Llort Quiteño with millions in cash. I recall that in August 2000, José Armando arrived with a backpack containing GTQ 2 million and he said that he was going to deposit the money into an account and that it had been given to him by General Eduardo Arévalo Lacs. On another occasion, he called me to his office and he said he had GTQ 5 million that a man called "Chorizo" had lent to him.

The witness statement was interrupted by technical problems; therefore, the court suspended the hearing and rescheduled it for today at 9.00 a.m. At the hearing, José Armando Llort Quiteño will also testify via videoconference.

Amparo suspended
The Second Chamber of the Court of Criminal Appeals suspended the amparo appeal filed by the defense counsel of former President Alfonso Portillo, which sought to prevent José Armando Llort Quiteño (the former President of the National Mortgage Credit Bank ) from testifying.

The judges of the chamber said that the appeal was rejected on the grounds that the defense counsel had not exhausted all other remedies prior to filing for amparo.