Former Salvadoran President Arrested for Alleged Corruption

The former President of El Salvador, Elías Antonio Saca, who led the country from 2004 to 2009, was arrested in the early hours of October 30 on alleged charges of money laundering and embezzlement. Saca and six of his cabinet members were detained while attending a Saca family wedding celebration in San Salvador. The Attorney General’s Office of El Salvador (FGR) confirmed through its Twitter feed that it had ordered the arrest for Saca under accusations of fraud, speculation, and illicit association. Earlier this year, El Salvador’s Supreme Court had ordered a civil trial of Saca and his wife ‘‘after he could not explain how he acquired $5 million at the end of his term [in 2009],’’ as stated by Newsweek. He is suspected of having received more than $15 million dollars from the national budget’s ‘‘secret section,’’ supposedly used to finance government intelligence operations.

Among the accused were other high-ranking officials, including former communications minister Julio Rank, president of El Salvador’s national water management agency and Saca’s youth minister César Funes, and three others who still work for the executive branch. A few hours after their arrest, another private secretary that worked for Saca, Elex Charlaix, voluntarily came forward, even though his name was not mentioned in the FGR’s capture order. They were all taken to the Anti-Narcotic Division of the National Police.

Saca is the third Salvadoran president to have come under investigation for corruption, though none of them have belonged to the same political party. The late Francisco Flores of the ARENA party, who served as president from 1999 to 2004, died earlier this year while awaiting his trial for charges of illegal enrichment. Another former president, Mauricio Funes of the ruling FMLN party, is suspected of the same crime because “he was unable to justify more than 700 thousand dollars in his [accounts] once his presidential term ended in June 2014,’’ as reported by the international newspaper El País. Funes is currently exiled in Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega has granted him political asylum.