On Thursday, a court ordered the arrest of former Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes (2009-2014), who sought asylum in Nicaragua in 2016, for the crime of tax evasion, the fifth arrest warrant against him, the prosecution said.
Judge Carlos Edgardo Bendix ordered the arrest after the FGR presented a new accusation against him on March 27th. The Prosecutor’s Office accused Funes of not having declared income for 271,857 dollars in 2014, in addition to evading taxes for 85,157 dollars.
Funes is exposed to a penalty of four to eight years in prison for tax evasion, according to the Prosecutor’s Office. He faces other criminal proceedings before the Salvadoran justice system, mainly for crimes related to corruption, for which the other arrest warrants were issued.
The first of these dates back to June 27th, 2018, due to the alleged deviation of 351 million dollars during his term, and the second was in November that year for other corruption charges.
The other two orders were issued last January for crimes of disclosure of facts and documents to the detriment of public administration and money laundering.
The Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) agreed on March 21st to request the extradition of Funes.