Helsinki – Support The Bitkovs https://supportthebitkovs.com/en Official Website Mon, 24 Dec 2018 00:16:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://supportthebitkovs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Support-The-Bitkovs-Favicon-2.png Helsinki – Support The Bitkovs https://supportthebitkovs.com/en 32 32 How the U.N. Bullies a U.S. Ally https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/como-la-onu-intimida-a-un-aliado-de-los-estados-unidos/ Sun, 23 Dec 2018 23:26:46 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=2199 Español Disponible Aquí

Scores of fraudulent residency cards are issued, but the official escapes prosecution.

By

Mary Anastasia O’Grady

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales speaks in Guatemala City, Dec. 20.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales speaks in Guatemala City, Dec. 20. PHOTO: CORTESÃCA/ZUMA PRESS

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales last week delivered a blow to an unaccountable United Nations agency by giving 11 of its foreign employees 72 hours to leave the country. In September he announced that the U.N. Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG, must shut down within one year. Then he banned its top prosecutor from re-entering the country.

Late Friday a Guatemalan judge granted an injunction against the expulsion. But not before Mississippi’s Roger Wicker took to the U.S. Senate floor to declare that Guatemala, as a sovereign nation, has every right to expel CICIG, listing some of the commission’s past abuses.

More shady CICIG behavior has recently come to light, raising questions about related national-security risks it represents for the U.S., which funds it.

Aslan Mussin was executive secretary to the dictator of Kazakhstan from 2008 to 2012. But on Oct. 22, 2010, Guatemala granted Mr. Mussin permanent residency, a status that by law requires applicants to have lived in the country for at least a year. In other words, Mr. Mussin’s residency card, which allowed him to become a naturalized Guatemalan, was fraudulent.

CICIG has prosecuted a group of low- and mid-level Guatemalan bureaucrats for their roles in issuing fake documents. But the stamp and signature of the migration office’s deputy director, Mayra Véliz, were on the residency permits for Mr. Mussin and family members and scores of other Guatemalan permanent-residency permits, according to leaked documents.

Speaking to reporters in March, Ms. Véliz said “it has been determined that my signatures were falsified.” She didn’t say who determined that. She also said she hadn’t had time to file a complaint with the attorney general’s office—where she had become deputy. If she has done so since, she has not publicized it even though an investigation could clear her name.

Remarkably, CICIG has not prosecuted Ms. Véliz. Quite the opposite: In May 2014 she became deputy to then-Guatemalan Attorney General Thelma Aldana, who aggressively prosecuted defendants charged by CICIG. These include the Russian entrepreneur Igor Bitkov, his wife, Irina, and their daughter, Anastasia, arrested in 2015 for using false documents and tried in 2017 at Moscow’s behest.

CICIG was brought into the country in 2007 to confront rampant corruption. Yet it has violated the constitution, trampled civil liberties, and wielded its power with impunity. An April Helsinki Commission hearing on Capitol Hill, chaired by New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith, exposed CICIG’s Russia ties and human-rights violations in the Bitkov case.

Most of Washington has turned a blind eye to CICIG’s reckless disregard for the law—with the notable exception of Rep. Smith and Sens. Wicker and Marco Rubio. This is a dangerous mistake. Foreigners can get a Guatemalan passport if they first secure permanent resident status. Once naturalized, they can travel visa-free to the European Union, Israel, Central America and most of South America. It can’t be a coincidence that the residency permits Ms. Véliz signed were for applicants from places like Kazakhstan, Russia, China, Iran, Libya and Syria.

Brave Guatemalans have been trying to get to the bottom of things. In 2014 an official inside the National Registry of Persons noticed that an inordinate number of national identity cards had been issued without the required fingerprints due to “amputation.” A January 2015 complaint filed with the attorney general’s office asked for an investigation.

One of the prosecutors assigned to the investigation, Heidi Tamara de León Muñoz, began to uncover fraudulent documents bearing Ms. Véliz’s stamp and signature. Ms. de León Muñoz told me by telephone last week that she was forced out of her job in January 2017.

The attorney general’s office said she was let go for poor performance. But her version of events is supported by the leaked documents, including a 2015 letter from José Francisco Pelaez Cordón, deputy director at the office of migration. In response to a query from the National Registry of Persons, he wrote that the migration office could find no supporting documentation for 84 foreigners who had been granted permanent residency. The vast majority of those permits contain Ms. Véliz’s signature.

In April the Bitkovs’ convictions were annulled by a higher-court ruling, which said that as migrants under the U.N.’s Palermo Convention and Guatemalan law, they have no criminal liability for fake documents they were given. But CICIG flouted the ruling; Mr. Bitkov is now on trial again for the same charges. No doubt jailing the family is what Russia wants and one reason why Mr. Morales is justified in asking CICIG to leave.

Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-u-n-bullies-a-u-s-ally-11545598724

 

]]> (Español) Inspector General del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU. Investigará a CICIG https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/inspector-general-del-departamento-de-estado-de-ee-uu-investigara-a-cicig/ Thu, 12 Jul 2018 10:50:23 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1991 Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

 

El día 11 de julio del año 2018 durante la audiencia del Comité De  Relaciones Exteriores del Congreso de Estados Unidos se determinó la necesidad de que el Inspector General del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU junto a un equipo de investigadores se constituya en Guatemala para investigar a la CICIG específicamente por la injerencia del Kremlin en la persecución hacia la familia de migrantes y empresarios rusos Bitkovs.

ES IMPORTANTE DESTACAR QUE: Los medios de comunicación social en Guatemala NO MOSTRARON la intervención completa del Honorable Ed Royce (R-CA), Presidente Audiencia del Comité de Asuntos Exteriores así como del vicepresidente de la Comisión de Helsinki Honorable Christopher Smith (R NJ-4) al momento que cuestionaron  al subsecretario adjunto principal interino del Departamento de Estado de EE.UU Kenneth Merten sobre el papel que CICIG ocupa en la persecución de la familia Rusa Bitkov en Guatemala  por lo que a continuación presentamos la intervención completa que ningún medio de comunicación tuvo el valor de mostrar…

 

I PARTE Audiencia del Comité de Relaciones Exteriores del Congreso de Estados Unidos 11 julio de 2018

II PARTE Audiencia del Comité de Relaciones Exteriores del Congreso de Estados Unidos 11 julio 2018

 

]]> (Español) ENTREVISTA CON Bill Browder – La injerencia del Kremlin en CICIG https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/entrevista-con-bill-browder-la-injerencia-del-kremlin-en-cicig/ Thu, 12 Jul 2018 06:43:51 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1992 Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

Entrevista Bill Browder Caso Bitkov Veacanal

Subtítulos en español disponibles en el siguiente video:

]]> Russian Interference in Guatemala – GAZPROMBANK https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/injerencia-rusa-en-guatemala-gasprombank/ Mon, 18 Jun 2018 22:11:39 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1954 ESPAÑOL DISPONIBLE AQUÍ

Attorney Alfonso Carrillo

Multiple proves regarding the Bitkov case, and about Russian interference to destroy the Bitkov family through CICIG have been delivered and registered at the US Senate.

The most recent proof that was been incorporated into the Helsinki Commission is related to the role of Attorney Alfonso Carrillo Marroquín as a link between KREMLIN and CICIG.

Alfonso Carrillo en Comisión de Helsinki Caso Bitkovs
Alfonso Carrillo in Helsinki Commission Case Bitkovs

The Senate already has information about the participation of the Lawyer Henry Phillip Comte Velasquez, who is Alternative Magistrate of the CONSTITUTIONAL COURT and has a Power of Attorney from the Russian State Bank VTB, but a something was missing. It was the roll of the Attorney Alfonso Carrillo. Now the relationship between Comte and Carrillo and their relationship between Russia and Guatemala is under investigation.

It turns out that there is another Power or Attorney, contained in a Notarial Deed, which was granted from Moscow by another of the Vladimir Putin’s Banks, GAZPROMBANK Bank, that granted a Judicial power of attorney with Representation in favor of the Guatemalan lawyer Alfonso Carrillo Marroquín.

Vladimir Putin (Left) Andrey Akimov (Right)
Mandato de Gazprombak para Alfonso Carrillo
Power of Atterney by Gazprombak / Alfonso Carrillo
Certification of the Power of Attorney by Gazprombak / Alfonso Carrillo

This Russian Power of Attorney granted in favor of Carrillo is a very important proof, since Alfonso Carrillo has lobbied at the SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE and the CONSTITUTIONAL COURT on detriment of the Bitkov.

Eventually the magistrates and their staffers of both Guatemalan courts could be called as witnesses of that lobby.

Let us also remember that Alfonso Carrillo has filled many injuctions trying to harm the Institutions of the State of Guatemala, against the President of the Republic and to defend, officiously, Commissioner Ivan Velásquez, when President of Guatemala declared him “non grato”.

Twitter Translation: #Now | The lawyer Alfonso Carrillo filed an amparo action before the @CC_Guatemala in favor of the commissioner Iván Velásquez, so that Jimmy Morales will comply with everything related to the prerogatives and facilities that Velásquez has, as head of the CICIG.

Before the hearing against CICIG, at the Helsinki Commission, Alfonso Carrillo traveled to Washington, lobbying with other Guatemalan personalities, trying to influence the US Senate, without any success.

Alfonso Carrillo represents the interests of CICIG and organizations that define themselves as “fighters” against impunity, but who hide spurious interests, who want power through alternative mechanisms to the democratic system.

We must be vigilant and denounce any hidden person so that the weight of

]]> (Español) El Impacto de la Comisión de Helsinki – Caso Bitkov https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/el-impacto-de-la-comision-de-helsinki-caso-bitkov/ Tue, 08 May 2018 07:35:37 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1750  

 

]]> Iván Velásquez was called to the Helsinki Commission – Bitkov Case https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/ivan-velasquez-fue-citado-a-la-comision-de-helsinki-caso-bitkov/ Tue, 08 May 2018 05:15:36 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1787 ESPAÑOL DISPONIBLE AQUÍ

The commissioner of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala CICIG was invited by the Helsinki Commission in a letter which we share below:

Invititation to Ivan Velasquez-page-001

It should be noted that Iván Velásquez did not attend the official invitation of the Helsinki Commission, which leaves much to be desired…

]]> In Guatemala, vows to fight graft despite US senator’s hold https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/en-guatemala-promete-luchar-contra-el-soborno-a-pesar-del-control-del-senador-de-estados-unidos/ Tue, 08 May 2018 01:36:43 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1780

Español Disponible aquí:

May 07, 2018 07:39 PM
Updated 1 hour 46 minutes ago

GUATEMALA CITY 

Backers of efforts to combat corruption in Guatemala are vowing that work will not be stopped by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio putting a hold on $6 million in U.S. contributions for a U.N.-sponsored commission probing graft in the country.

Commission chief Ivan Velasquez said he would not comment but tweeted Sunday: “The fight against impunity and against corruption must continue; it does not wait; it cannot be suspended or delayed. There is neither time nor space for pessimism, uncertainty, discouragement or fear.”

Guatemalan lawmaker Andrea Villagran said Monday that lobbyists in Washington are misinterpreting the fight against corruption in Guatemala and is hopeful that Rubio’s request will not last.

“What Senator Rubio says should not do significant harm, since it is not a person who makes decisions — it is a group,” she said. “And we understand U.S. politics. They are institutional regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.”

Rubio announced the hold Friday, which affects funding already authorized by Congress but not yet disbursed.

In a statement, he said he was concerned the commission may have been “manipulated and used by radical elements and Russia’s campaign against the Bitkov family in Guatemala.”

Guatemala’s highest court recently overturned a prison conviction for the three Bitkovs, who were accused of using forged documents to live in the country. They claim to be the victims of a plot orchestrated by Moscow but have produced no evidence to support their allegation.

Rubio also sent a letter to Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales asking him to guarantee the Bitkovs’ safety.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article210664774.html

]]> (Español) Mas senadores se unen a Rubio para pedir suspensión de financiamiento de CICIG https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/mas-senadores-se-unen-a-rubio-para-pedir-suspension-de-financiamiento-de-cicig/ Tue, 08 May 2018 01:03:46 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1766 Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

Más senadores se unen a Rubio para pedir suspensión de financiamiento de CICIG mediante una Petición oficial a la Cámara de Representantes de la Casa Blanca

Antes de enviarles otro 6 millones de su Tax $, merecemos saber qué papel de Putin y el banco ruso sancionado por Estados Unidos jugó en la decisión de una ONU Comisión para condenar a familia que huye de la persecución del Kremlin a 19 años de prisión por una violación de pasaporte 

 

 

Más congresistas estadounidenses se unen al senador para pedir una suspensión del financiamiento de CICIG hasta que la familia Bitkov sea liberada de la prisión guatemalteca. Senador y senador Mike Lee todos pidieron un asimiento en la financiación de $6 millones de dolares

]]> Microscopic Dots, Cont. https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/english-microscopic-dots-cont/ Sun, 06 May 2018 19:29:03 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1725

Español Disponible Aquí:

Igor Bitkov and his son Vladimir (born in Guatemala, after the family had fled Russia)
By 

 Last month, I went to Guatemala to visit a family named Bitkov in their prisons. Igor, Irina, and Anastasia Bitkov fled Russia in fear of their lives. They wound up in Guatemala. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, they are now in prison. They were put there by a strange combination of Guatemalan legal authorities, a Russian bank, and a U.N. agency. You can read my story — the Bitkovs’ story, told by me — here.There is good news: Senator Marco Rubio has placed a hold on U.S. funding of the U.N. agency. And there is talk that Canada might accept the Bitkovs, in the event of their release. (Article here.)

A clutch of people have taken up the Bitkovs’ cause. Rubio is one of them. Bill Browder is another. (He is the financier who campaigns for “Magnitsky acts,” sanctioning human-rights abusers.) Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal has written repeatedly about the Bitkovs and their case.

I sat in prison with Irina Bitkov. She marveled at the help she and her family were getting. “We are not their fellow citizens,” she said of those helping the Bitkovs. “We can’t do anything for them. They are helping us simply because we are human beings.” She could hardly believe it. She thought it was the most marvelous thing in the world.

And as she spoke, I thought of the nationalists and realists (self-styled).

After I got back, I wrote about an incident from the Carter years. President Carter was meeting with Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet foreign minister. Carter brought up the case of Anatoly Shcharansky (later Natan Sharansky), the leading refusenik in the Gulag. Gromyko was nonplussed at this. The USSR and the USA had such big fish to fry: nuclear arsenals, the fate of the world. And Carter was bringing up this one zek, this one prisoner. He is but “a microscopic dot,” Gromyko said.

A clutch of people have taken up the Bitkovs’ cause. Rubio is one of them. Bill Browder is another. (He is the financier who campaigns for “Magnitsky acts,” sanctioning human-rights abusers.) Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal has written repeatedly about the Bitkovs and their case.

I sat in prison with Irina Bitkov. She marveled at the help she and her family were getting. “We are not their fellow citizens,” she said of those helping the Bitkovs. “We can’t do anything for them. They are helping us simply because we are human beings.” She could hardly believe it. She thought it was the most marvelous thing in the world.

And as she spoke, I thought of the nationalists and realists (self-styled).

Today, my eyes fell on a piece by Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian democracy leader. Let me quote:

One morning in the spring of 2016, I spoke at a breakfast meeting with British members of Parliament who were on an official visit to Moscow. The conversation soon turned to the Magnitsky Act, the path-breaking U.S. measure that targeted individuals responsible for human rights abuses in Russia. When I urged my interlocutors to pass the same law in Britain, one member of the delegation broke me off and launched into a diatribe: why on earth, he complained, should the City of London forgo billions in profits because of some “human rights hearsay.”

Our meeting was taking place in the British ambassador’s residence, just a few hundred yards from the bridge where, months earlier, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down as he walked home after dinner. I was barely able to stand, using a cane, months after my own near-fatal poisoning. I had nothing to say to the honorable gentleman as he lamented the loss of profits.

“Human-rights hearsay,” “microscopic dots.” The national interest is paramount. It must always be thus. But we Americans find that, usually, our interest does not conflict with concern for human beings, for these little dots. It may be that they are, in fact, what makes life worth living.

Bill Browder Says:

Source:  https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/microscopic-dots-cont/

]]> (Español) Yassmín Barrios deja libres a integrantes de la Mara Salvatrucha https://supportthebitkovs.com/en/yassmin-barrios-deja-libres-a-integrantes-de-la-mara-salvatrucha/ Sun, 06 May 2018 07:48:24 +0000 http://supportthebitkovs.com/?p=1713 Sorry, this entry is only available in Español. For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

Yassmin Barrios Deja libres a integrantes de la Mara Salvatrucha

Sentencia dictada por Yassmín Barrios a favor de 2 prófugos miembros de la mara Salvatrucha, impactó al Senado de EE.UU.,  ya que no los envió a prisión por adquirir DPI falsos.

En el Senado de EE.UU.  llamó mucho la atención la condena dictada por el Tribunal de Sentencia presidido por Yassmín Barrios, dentro del proceso penal C-01031-2017-00005, debido a que un mes después de condenar a los Bitkov con penas brutales de  19 y 14 años de prisión y expulsión del país por adquirir de un traficante documentos de identidad emitidos por el Estado de Guatemala, condenaron, por ese mismo delito, a 2 salvadoreños miembros de la peligrosa mara Salvatrucha, con penas de 5 años de prisión conmutables (no fueron enviados a la cárcel).

Yasmin Barrios a favor de 2 miembros de la mara Salvatrucha
Sentencia expediente número 01031-2017-00005, Página 22, Yassmin Barrios beneficia con prisión conmutable a dos miembros activos de la Mara Salvatrucha.

Estos pandilleros, de nacionalidad salvadoreña, tenían agravantes en su actuar, debido a que ellos, contrario a los Bitkov, sí robaron la identidad de guatemaltecos, ya que utilizaron el nombre y apellido de guatemaltecos que sí existían, además, huyeron de El Salvador donde habían cometido más de 25 asesinatos; sin embargo, el mismo Tribunal que condenó a los Bitkov, no envió a prisión a estos miembros de la mara Salvatrucha.  Además, ese mismo Tribunal no ordenó la expulsión de Guatemala de estos pandilleros salvadoreños.

Los peligrosos pandilleros beneficiados por el Tribunal de Yassmín Barrios, son: Israel Antonio Cabrera Luna, alias “demonio”, y Mauricio Antonio Rivas Hernández, alias “Cabra” o “Patoja”.  Estos pandilleros, contrario a los empresarios rusos Bitkov, son asesinos peligrosos y extorsionan en Guatemala.

CICIG no fue querellante en contra  de estos peligrosos pandilleros a pesar de que ellos sí forman parte de una peligrosa estructura criminal (mara Salvatrucha); en cambio, la familia rusa Bitkov, nunca formó parte de estructura criminal alguna y, en cambio, CICIG sí pidió ser querellante en su contra para pedir las condenas brutales ya mencionadas.

A continuación dejamos copia de la sentencia del Tribunal de Yassmín barrios donde beneficia a estos dos pandilleros:

.

IMPORTANTE: Después de haber leído la sentencia juzgue usted como el MP miente a la población mediante su portal de “noticias” institucional el cual hizo alarde de condenar a dos integrantes de la MS 13 sin mencionar que las  “condenas” fueron de tan solo 5 años conmutables los cuales fueron otorgados por la Jueza Yassmín Barrios. 

Fuente mp.gob.gt enlace: https://www.mp.gob.gt/noticias/2018/02/14/tres-exempleados-del-renap-y-dos-integrantes-de-la-ms-13-son-condenados-por-alterar-el-sistema-del-registro-civil/

 

Esto constituye una de las tantas ilegalidades del caso Bitkov, y es por ello que el Senado de EE.UU. está investigando la injerencia rusa en el actuar de CICIG y de los jueces y fiscales a cargo del proceso penal.

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