COMMISSION RATIFIES COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST JUDGE JERÓNIMO XITUMUL

Guatemala, March 12, 2013. Today, before the Second Chamber of the Court of Appeals, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) ratified the complaint filed against Judge Julio Jerónimo Xitumul. In the report titled "The Impunity Judges", the judge is accused of committing malfeasance of office. The report was submitted to the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) in November 2012.

At the hearing, a CICIG official explained to Jorge Mario Valenzuela, the investigating judge in the case, the grounds on which Jerónimo Xitumul should be charged with malfeasance of office. The official cited the following decisions that had been passed by the judge in the following cases:

1. C-7102-2001, whereby former President Alfonso Portillo Cabrera was accused.
2. C-5041-2002, whereby the former Minister of Public Finance during the Alfonso Portillo Cabrera government, Manuel Hiram Maza Castellanos, was accused.
3. C-01077-2008-05963, whereby the former Head of the Secretariat of Administrative and Security Affairs during the Álvaro Colom government, Carlos Herlindo Quintanilla Villegas, and former Secretary of Strategic Analysis during the Álvaro Colom government, Gustavo Bladimir Solano Cerezo, were accused.

At the hearing, CICIG filed copies of decisions issued in the aforementioned criminal proceedings by Judge Jerónimo Xitumul when presiding over the Fifth Court of the First Criminal Instance. The Commission also requested that the admissibility of the immunity lifting proceedings be declared and that the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) lift the judge's immunity so as to proceed with malfeasance of office investigations. In addition, it asked the investigating judge to take any necessary procedural steps.

The present proceeding forms part of the proceedings to lift immunity undertaken against Judge Jerónimo Xitumul. It is also falls under the complaints CICIG filed before the CSJ on February 6 denouncing nine judges.