GUATEMALA CITY, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The assassination at the weekend of anti-graft lawyer Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa, who made powerful enemies by taking on Guatemala's elite, marks one of the most significant political killings in the country in recent decades, renewing concerns about the vulnerability of those who fight corruption in Central America.
Family, friends and supporters held a wake for Solorzano, 43, on Monday, two days after he was shot dead by two assailants at a Guatemala City sports center. His burial is scheduled for Tuesday.
Guatemalan police said they had detained two men in relation to the killing,and seized a carbine-style firearm and a motorcycle. Both were released on Sunday without charge and maintain their innocence. Police said they have yet to establish a motive for the killing.
For Guatemalans, it brought back grim memories of the 1998 assassination of Bishop Juan José Gerardi, who was beaten to death two days after presenting a damning reportthat documented atrocities from Guatemala's civil war, blaming the army and its allied forces for most of the violence.
"In terms of magnitude and significance, I think (we have to go back) to 1998, when FatherGerardi was killed," said Juan Francisco Sandoval, former head of Guatemala's Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity.
SOLORZANO TARGETED THE ELITE
Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa was the son of a guerrilla fighter who died in the civil war in the 1980s, and the grandson of the acclaimed poet and activist Alaíde Foppa, who was abducted in 1980 and never seen again.
Solorzano rose from assistant prosecutor to become a leading anti-corruption figure. He worked with the UN-backed anti-corruption group CICIG on the "La Línea" bribery case, which brought down President Otto Pérez Molina in 2015.
As head of Guatemala's tax agency from 2016, he targeted the business elite. He won a record $100 million settlement from the steelmaker Aceros de Guatemala and had the Camino Real hotel owner arrested over false invoices. His cases recovered about $280 million in taxes.
"He had many adversaries because of his work at the tax authority, and many political adversaries, especially because of the public accusations he made," said Sandoval, who had known Solorzano for 23 years.
Solorzano was fired in 2018 and CICIG was forced out as part of a backlash by Guatemala's powerful entrenched elite. In 2021, he was arrested over accusations of irregularities in signatures collected to register a new party.
"This does not give me any shame," Solorzano said at the time, showing the handcuffs on his wrists to reporters in court. "This shows we are touching the powerful people of this country."
A judge later dismissed the most serious charges.
In 2023, he briefly joined the defense team of Guatemalan investigative journalist Jose Ruben Zamora, who was arrested on money laundering charges but said he was a political prisoner. Solorzano regularly asserted links between criminal gangs and political parties, as well as the judicial system.
"It hurts me deeply, because this is not how you end the life of a citizen who has given so much to the country," said former Interior Minister Francisco Rivas, a friend of Solorzano for 20 years. "He was a fighter, extraordinarily brave, and very firm in his convictions and values."
President Bernardo Arevalo, who campaigned as an anti-corruption champion in the election he won in 2023, also condemned the killing, calling it a "cowardly" murder on Saturday. "Both the direct perpetrators and those who ordered the crime must face the full weight of the law," he said.
Solorzano leaves four children: two from a first marriage and two with a second partner.
Solorzano's uncle, human rights activist Julio Solorzano, suggested the murder could be a way to generate fear and distrust and to destabilize the country.
"We hope it will soon be known who the perpetrators were, but its impact as a political crime has already been felt," he said during the wake on Monday.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Raúl Cortés Fernández in Mexico City; additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
