{"id":1977,"date":"2018-07-01T17:11:31","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T23:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/?p=1977"},"modified":"2018-07-01T17:45:44","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T23:45:44","slug":"english-guatemala-russia-and-the-bitkovs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/supportthebitkovs.com\/en\/2018\/07\/01\/english-guatemala-russia-and-the-bitkovs\/","title":{"rendered":"Guatemala, Russia and the Bitkovs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ESPA\u00d1OL DISPONIBLE AQU\u00cd:<\/a>\"\"<\/h6>\n

The family remains in jeopardy thanks to a U.S.-funded rogue U.N. agency.<\/h2>\n

\"Guatemala,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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By\u00a0Mary Anastasia O\u2019Grady<\/span><\/div>\n

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It\u2019s been two months since Guatemala\u2019s Constitutional Court cleared a Russian migrant family of all criminal charges related to their use of illegally issued documents. The April 25 high-court exoneration of Igor Bitkov, his wife, Irina, and their daughter, Anastasia, was widely heralded, including in this\u00a0newspaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet the Bitkovs still aren\u2019t free.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s because the same court now says that Igor Bitkov has to stand trial again on related charges. The cases of Irina and Anastasia remain in limbo. All three are out of jail but confined to Guatemala City.<\/p>\n

The Bitkovs\u2019 story deserves to be further aired in the U.S. press because their continued persecution comes at the hands of a United Nations agency\u2014the Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG\u2014that is funded by the U.S. and itself operates with impunity.<\/p>\n

Recall that the entrepreneurial Bitkovs\u00a0fled\u00a0<\/a>Russia in 2008 because the Kremlin was trying to put them in prison for refusing to cooperate with Putin extortionists. The Russian state-owned VTB bank followed the family to Guatemala and hired the local law firm of Comte & Font to bring charges. VTB\u2019s Guatemalan lawyers couldn\u2019t prove the $6 million fraud allegation. But CICIG went to court in support of VTB\u2019s effort to put the family in jail for using fake documents received from Guatemalan migration offices.<\/p>\n

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It can\u2019t be a coincidence the high court\u2019s April ruling that the Bitkovs had no criminal liability came two days before Rep. Chris Smith (R., N.J.), co-chairman of the Helsinki Commission, was to hold a public hearing in Washington about the case. The hearing promised to expose CICIG\u2019s nasty role\u2014including collusion with the Russian government\u2014in the travesty suffered by the Bitkov family.<\/p>\n

Immediately after the high-court decision, CICIG apologists launched a full-court press on Capitol Hill to cover up the U.N. agency\u2019s many transgressions. William Browder, who has been working on behalf of the Bitkovs and was preparing to testify at the hearing, told me by telephone from London last week that he was asked by congressional staffers in Washington to meet with Alfonso Carrillo, a Guatemalan lawyer.<\/p>\n

He says that Mr. Carrillo tried to convince him that CICIG is doing \u201creally good work and that whatever I said in the hearing, not to speak negatively about CICIG.\u201d Mr. Browder says Mr. Carrillo didn\u2019t reveal that he had been given power of attorney by Russia\u2019s state-owned Gazprombank. Nor, Mr. Browder says, did Mr. Carrillo tell him that when Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales declared CICIG lead prosecutor Iv\u00e1n Vel\u00e1squez persona non grata in Guatemala for politicizing the CICIG mandate, Mr. Carrillo had been one of several lawyers who filed for an injunction to block it.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carrillo told me by email on Friday that Gazprombank gave power of attorney to several lawyers at his firm. He said he never accepted or acted on it\u2014and it expired in 2015. He also said neither he nor his firm have ever been paid by CICIG. Mr. Carrillo didn\u2019t respond to specific questions and said he needed more time.<\/p>\n

Henry Comte of Comte & Font, which was retained by VTB bank in 2012, has been an alternate on the Constitutional Court since 2016. In an email to me in March, his partner David Font told me that Mr. Comte had recused himself from any court hearings dealing with the Bitkov case.<\/p>\n

Lower-court judge Erika Aifan challenged the April 25 high-court ruling to release the Bitkovs, and CICIG supported her challenge. On June 21 the Constitutional Court did an about-face to satisfy both parties.<\/p>\n

It ruled that by attaining a driver\u2019s license and credit cards Mr. Bitkov committed separate crimes. It ordered a new trial.<\/p>\n

This is nonsense. An immigrant, believing he is legal, will naturally take the next step to drive a car legally and access credit. What\u2019s more, the U.N.\u2019s Palermo Convention, to which Guatemala is a signatory, and the Guatemalan migration code protect migrants who are victims of fraud while entering, staying in or leaving a country.<\/p>\n

CICIG supporters say it has done some good. In the \u201cmigration case\u201d it busted small fries in a crime ring inside government offices. But it never got the big fish. And even if it had, that\u2019s not carte blanche to flout the law. Scores of Guatemalans are languishing in jail without trials under CICIG investigations.<\/p>\n

Some in Washington get it. A senior congressional aide told me that the \u201cState Department is sharply divided over CICIG,\u201d with Trump appointees arguing that the \u201chold\u201d requested by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on $6 million of CICIG funding be used to \u201cleverage reform of an out-of-control agency.\u201d The aide added: \u201cStill, a group of career diplomats are fighting to completely deny all evidence of CICIG\u2019s complicity in the gross injustice to the Bitkovs, as well as its politicization and loss of credibility in Guatemala.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who knew the human rights of migrants were such a low priority for congressional staffers and Foggy Bottom?<\/p>\n

Write to O\u2019Grady@wsj.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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