A United Nations expert warned Friday at the conclusion of her two-week visit that Guatemala’s prosecutor’s office is increasingly using criminal law against former prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys, journalists and others. Margaret Satterthwaite, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, traveled the country meeting with judges, lawyers, lawmakers and others, including Guatemala’s chief prosecutor. “The instrumental use of criminal law by the Prosecutor General’s Office appears to amount to a systematic pattern of intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights, targeted at specific groups,” Satterthwaite wrote in her preliminary report.
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