Guatemala City, Oct 19 (EFE).- Journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín left the military barracks in the north of Guatemala City this Saturday, after being detained for 813 days in the midst of a judicial process plagued by irregularities and a judge granted him the measure of house arrest on Friday.
“I feel a mixture of things: joy and tranquility,” Zamora Marroquín declared to dozens of journalists after crossing the gate of the Mariscal Zavala barracks prison at 5:36 p.m. local time (23:36 GMT).
Zamora Marroquín had been in prison since July 29, 2022, when he was accused of alleged money laundering in a case that was presented by the Prosecutor’s Office just five days after the journalist accused the then Guatemalan president Alejandro Giammattei of acts of corruption. (2020-2024).
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office will go after me again and I will wait for them at my house, and if I have to go back to prison I will come calmly because the cases lack support,” the founder of the defunct newspaper added this Saturday outside the prison. The Newspaper.
Relatives of the journalist went to the prison to receive Zamora Marroquín, 67, upon his release, to whom a judge granted house arrest on Friday considering that the preventive detention time against him had been exceeded and out of respect for his human rights. .
Zamora Marroquín’s defense managed to prove that there is no danger of flight or obstruction of justice, so Judge Erik García agreed to send the journalist home under arrest.
Zamora Marroquín is internationally recognized for a career of more than three decades denouncing the state corruption of six presidential administrations in Guatemala.
In 2024, the journalist was recognized as the Gabo Award for Excellence and during his imprisonment he was openly supported by the governments of countries such as the United States and Spain.
After his release, Zamora Marroquín must continue facing criminal proceedings, a trial for money laundering and an intermediate stage for the crimes of alteration of immigration documents and obstruction of justice.
Between 2018 and 2024, more than 50 people, including journalists, judges, prosecutors and activists, have alleged being criminalized and persecuted by the judicial system of the Central American country.
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