Guatemalan lawyer arranged own slaying, U.N. panel says

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

Guatemalan lawyer arranged own slaying, U.N. panel says
January 12, 2010 -- Updated 1954 GMT (0354 HKT)

CNN) -- A lawyer who left a videotape saying Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would be responsible if anything happened to him masterminded his own death last year, a special United Nations commission said Tuesday after an eight-month investigation.

Colom had nothing to do with the killing, said Carlos Castresana, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.

"Rodrigo Rosenberg, for some reason, decided to put an end to his life," Castresana said at a televised news conference.

Prominent Guatemalan brothers Francisco Jose Valdez Paiz and Jose Estuardo Valdez Paiz hired hit men at the behest of Rosenberg, who told them he was being threatened by someone, Castresana said.

The two brothers, who own a pharmaceutical company, had been cousins of Rosenberg through a previous marriage and did not know that he was the target of the assassination, Castresana said.

Rosenberg fed information to the hit squad leader that led to his own death, giving descriptions of what the target looked like and where he would be.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/12/guatemala.lawyer.slaying/index.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Guatemalan planned his own murder, probe finds

January 12, 2010
Guatemalan planned his own murder, probe finds

Guatemala City, Jan 12, 2010 (EFE via COMTEX) -- The Spanish jurist who chairs Guatemala's International Commission Against Impunity said Tuesday that prominent attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg planned his own murder.

The May 10, 2009, crime ignited a political scandal in the Central American country, as Rosenberg pointed the finger at President Alvaro Colom in a posthumously released video, but Carlos Castresana told a press conference in Guatemala City that the evidence shows the lawyer "decided to put an end to his life." "In the investigations we have conducted up to now, we have found no indication of the participation of the president" in the murder, the Spaniard said.

Based on an analysis of cell phone calls, Castresana said, investigators concluded that Rosenberg asked his cousins, businessmen Francisco and Jose Valdes Paiz, to arrange a contract killing without telling them the identity of the intended victim.

The Valdes brothers in turn instructed one of their bodyguards, Nelson Wilfredo Santos Estrada, to recruit gunmen to carry out the deed, the jurist said.

More:
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/01/12/4568726.htm

http://totheroots.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/06/guatemala-rodrigo-rosenberg.jpg

http://s.wsj.net.nyud.net:8090/public/resources/images/OB-DQ930_guatem_G_20090512231534.jpg

[Judi Lynn]

2. U.N.: Man Plotted Own Death to Frame Prez

GUATEMALA CITY, Jan. 12, 2010
U.N.: Man Plotted Own Death to Frame Prez
Lawyer who Appeared in Posthumous Video Accusing Guatemalan President of his Murder Apparently Hired Hit Men who Killed Him

(AP) U.N. investigators say a Guatemalan lawyer who appeared in a posthumous video accusing the country's president of his murder actually contracted the hit men who killed him.

Attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg made a video before he was slain charging that Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would be involved if he were killed.

U.N. investigator Carlos Castresana says Rosenberg asked cousins of his first wife to help him contact a hit man. Castresana is head of a special investigation group that was invited by the government to probe the May 10 murder.

Castresana says evidence shows Rosenberg bought two cell phones: one to communicate with his killers, another to leave himself threatening messages.

More:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/12/world/main6088268.shtml

[Judi Lynn]

3. Guatemala President Alvaro Colom cleared over murder

Page last updated at 20:42 GMT, Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Guatemala President Alvaro Colom cleared over murder

A UN investigation has cleared Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom of involvement in the murder of a prominent lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg.

Mr Rosenberg, who died last May, had warned in a video that he would be killed on the orders of the president.

Now UN investigator Carlos Castresana says Mr Rosenberg ordered his own assassination.

He added that the lawyer's own cousins carried it out without knowing Mr Rosenberg was the victim.

He was shot dead days after recording a video saying the president and his aides were out to kill him, and would be responsible if he were found dead.

Mr Colom has always denied any involvement in the killing.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8455537.stm

[damntexdem]

4. Does anyone actually believe this?

I suspect that the fix was in in the UN investigation.