Article: Portillo in Mexico

Former Guatemalan president living, working in city where he was once accused of murder

Mexico City (AP) — Nine months after he disappeared under a cloud of corruption allegations at home, former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo is living and working in the same Mexican city he fled two decades ago to avoid arrest on murder charges, The Associated Press has learned.

Portillo is working for a construction materials distributor, maintaining homes in the Mexico City and in Chilpancingo, 130 miles south of the capital, officials told The Associated Press. The information was believed to be the first disclosure of the former leader's secret life here.

Latin American leaders often flee their countries at the first sign of possible corruption allegations, taking up secret residence in foreign lands and rarely facing prosecution.

Portillo left office on Jan. 14 and fled to Mexico on a tourist visa a month later after he was implicated in an alleged corruption scandal in Guatemala. His whereabouts were unknown until now, although Mexican immigration officials announced this month they had granted him a one-year work visa. Those officials, apparently to shield Portillo, refused to say where he would be working and living.

However, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Francisco Bahena, owner of Materiales Bahena, said he had hired Portillo as a financial adviser because the two were old friends.

The company, located in Chilpancingo, is owned by Construrama, a materials distribution company in turned owned by Cemex, the third-largest cement producer in the world.

Portillo admitted in 1999, while running for president in Guatemala, that he had killed two of his former students while a professor in Chilpancingo in 1982. He said the killings were in self-defense and that he fled the state to avoid a trial. Portillo claimed he could not get a fair trial then. The case has since been closed, and he can no longer be charged in the killings.

However, he could still face charges in Guatemala, which is investigating allegations of corruption and negligence that range from failure to pay rent for a private mansion he occupied while in office, to taking millions of dollars from the army and distributing the cash to other government departments.

No formal charges have been filed in Guatemala, and Mexican officials say they have not received an arrest warrant. Therefore, the officials said, they issued the Mexican work visa.

Mexico and Guatemala have an extradition treaty, but it's too early to say whether Mexico would send Portillo home.

Officials close to the former president told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that he shuttles between a home in southern Mexico City and Chilpancingo. They said he would not be interviewed for this report.