Lawyer arranged his own assassination... then blamed Guatemalan president in video made before his death
By Mail Foreign ServiceLast updated at 12:02 AM on 15th January 2010
A Guatemalan lawyer who accused the country's president of his murder in a video made before his death actually orchestrated his own assassination, investigators revealed today.
一名危地馬拉律師在一片段中指責該國總統謀殺他，錄像在他去世之前製造，以和應他自己的暗殺，調查人員今天透露。
Rodrigo Rosenberg contracted a hitman to kill an extortionist - but he was really arranging to be killed himself in a way that would inflict maximum damage on Guatemala's government, a UN commission has discovered.
羅森堡聘請一名殺手去殺死一名勒索者-但他真正是在安排殺害自己，這做法對危地馬拉政府造成最大傷害，一聯合國委員會發現。
Rosenberg, 47, was shot five times on May 10 last year while riding his bicycle.
羅森堡，47歲，去年5月10日當騎上自行車時，被擊中5次。
A day later, a videotape that he had made earlier surfaced. In it, he says: 'Unfortunately, if you are watching the message, it is because I was assassinated by President Álvaro Colom.'
一天後，他已做好的一條錄像帶浮面。在片內他說：'如果你正在看這信息，不幸地，因為我被總統Colom暗殺了。
The body of Rodrigo Rosenberg lies next to a Guatemala City road after he was shot by a hitman last year. A video recorded before his death accused the country's President Alvaro Colom of his murder
In the video and a written statement, Mr Rosenberg accused the president of corruption and linked that to the murder of one of his clients, the businessman Khalil Musa, as well as Mr Musa’s daughter, Marjorie.
Rosenberg told his murderers 'I have an extortionist who is threatening me and I want to kill him,' according to Carlos Castresana, head of the probe.
Castresana said evidence shows Rosenberg bought two mobile phones: one to communicate with his killers and another to deliver threatening messages to his own personal phone.
The 47-year-old lawyer, who served as assistant dean at a private university, was motivated by a sense of guilt over what he believed was the government's involvement and failure to properly investigate the Musa killings.
Rosenberg had advised Khalil Musa to accept a seat on the board of directors of the private - and government-sponsored - Rural Development Bank.
In his video, Rosenberg said if he were slain, it would be to silence him for discovering the killings were linked to money laundering at the bank.
A photographer looks at a screen showing the suspects in the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg, including the lawyer himself, during a report by the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala
Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom gives a news conference after a UN-backed commission cleared him of links to the scandal
Castresana said that blaming Colom apparently was a way of shaking up the powers that be and 'opening up a Pandora's box that would result on change in the country.'
Rosenberg also appeared to be depressed about the recent death of this mother and losing custody of his children, the investigation said.
His posthumous accusations of corruption became a rallying cry for members of Guatemala's dominant elite, many of whom are angry over Colom's attempts to eliminate tax loopholes for corporations and criticize his inability to reduce high rates of violent crime.
Colom is overwhelmingly backed by Guatemala's mostly Mayan Indian poor for his efforts to tax the rich and build schools and clinics for disadvantaged communities.
Colom has suggested that criminal or political interests were behind the video and expressed relief on Tuesday.
'The day has arrived that I have waited for in silence and patience, where this crime finally been clarified,' Colom told reporters.
The commission's investigation has led to 11 arrests with three of those people working with investigators as protected witnesses.
The commission said it was able to identify suspects in the killing using security camera footage from where Rosenberg was shot on his bicycle and by tracing cell phone calls.
The cousins implicated in the investigation, Francisco and Estuardo Valdes Paiz, are considered fugitives from justice. Investigators allege they contacted the head of security at their pharmaceutical company to help them find someone to carry out the killing for $40,000.
'The information that (witnesses) have given us coincides down to the millimeter with our investigations,' he said.
Watch footage of Rodrigo Rosenberg accusing President Alvaro Colom of his murder
The Unspeakable Murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg (English subtitles)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC_ODpxMA10&feature=player_embedded
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1243089/Guatemalan-lawyer-hired-hitman-kill-blamed-president-YouTube-video-death.html
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