TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department added 14 officials from Central American countries, including former and current ministers, judges and prosecutors, to a list published on Thursday of “corrupt and undemocratic actors.”
The U.S. periodically updates the so-called Engel list with foreign officials it deems to have engaged in actions that undermine democracy, are suspected of serious corruption, or obstruct investigations of justice.
In the latest release, four Nicaraguans, four Guatemalans, three Salvadorans and three Hondurans entered the list.
Targets include current Honduran Strategic Planning Minister Ricardo Salgado, along with three prosecutors and a former Guatemalan Supreme Court justice.
Salgado, a member of the cabinet of Honduran leftist President Xiomara Castro, was singled out by Washington for allegedly directing “coordinated efforts” by the ruling party to suppress dissent by violently intimidating opposition.
Salgado said later in a statement that he feels “proud” to have been included in the list, as the U.S. tends to align with the ruling party’s corruption and impunity.
In Guatemala, prosecutor Leonor Eugenia Morales Lazo “led a politically motivated investigation to cast doubt on certified election results to disrupt the presidential transition,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
The U.S. and other Western countries have backed President-elect Bernardo Arevalo’s claims that probes launched against him and his party are a coordinated effort to undermine democracy in Guatemala, Central America’s most populous country.
El Salvador’s names include three officials of the country’s institute for access of public information, who were added to the list for deliberately blocking access to public information, according to the U.S. government.
Washington also blacklisted Judge Gloria Saavedra of Nicaragua for using her position to facilitate a coordinated campaign to suppress dissent by seizing a Jesuit-run university without legal basis.
(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Writing by Valentine Hilaire; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)