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2024

Prominent Guatemalan Journalist Released After 2 Years Behind Bars

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Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images

An award-winning journalist imprisoned in Guatemala for nearly two years was granted a conditional release on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

José Rubén Zamora, 67, was first arrested on charges of possible money laundering, blackmail, and influence peddling in July 2022. After a year in detention while he waited for his case to play out, he was convicted on the money laundering charge by a three-judge panel, which sentenced him to six years in prison and fined him $40,000. (He was cleared of blackmail and influence peddling.)

A prominent critic of Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, Zamora is best-known as the founder and publisher of the elPeriódico newspaper, which regularly investigated graft and corruption within Giammattei’s government. ElPeriódico shuttered the year after Zamora’s arrest.

Read more at The Daily Beast.