Former Guatemalan Vice President Roxana Baldetti (2012-2015) has been extradited to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking, although she insisted she was innocent.
I accept my extradition. I accept the extradition process to resolve my legal situation in the United States because I am innocent and I hope justice is done,”
said Baldetti during a hearing in a US court.
At the end of the hearing, Judge Adán García authorized the extradition of Baldetti, but said that the transfer to the United States must take place after she faces the accusations in Guatemala.
The former official made the statement via videoconference from a women’s prison in the north of the capital where she is being held, as her lawyers asked, for security reasons.
Last week, the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry announced that the United States sent Baldetti’s extradition request for crimes of criminal association and conspiracy to drug trafficking.
According to local press, which reported the indictment, Baldetti protected the operation of the Mexican cartel Los Zetas in Guatemala.
According to US government syndication, the investigation revealed that the former vice president accepted money and gifts from drug traffickers in exchange for allowing them to operate without restrictions,”
said prosecutors during the court hearing.
The accusation against Baldetti, filed by the District Court of Columbia (Washington), was released on February 24th, when former Interior Minister Mauricio López was charged with drug trafficking, and who is also in prison for corruption, although he has not been requested for extradition.
I have been a politician in this country for more than 20 years, and surely I made many enemies in the way, and this extradition I can only see it as revenge for the things I did as a righteous politician during the time I served as legislator and vice president,” added Baldetti.
Baldetti resigned from the vice presidency in May 2015, following an investigation that revealed that she and then-President Otto Pérez, who resigned in September of that year, led a network that charged bribes to entrepreneurs to evade customs duties.