Former Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca, convicted of corruption and money laundering, will have to spend ten years in prison and reimburse $ 260 million, the Attorney General of El Salvador announced on Friday (December 27th).
The Attorney General, Raul Melara, announced on Twitter the confirmation, decided the day before by the Supreme Court, of the conviction pronounced in September 2018 by a Salvadoran court of Elias Antonio Saca, president from 2004 to 2009, and six of his close collaborators, who had confessed to having embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Supreme Court "Confirmed what I demanded as attorney general", he wrote. Besides his prison sentence, Mr. Saca "Must return" to the Salvadoran state $ 260.7 million fraudulently acquired, the attorney general said. "Such will be the fate of those who steal money from Salvadorans", he added.
The Attorney General recalled that the network composed by "Corrupt officials during Saca's tenure stole over 300 million" of dollars. "How many schools, hospitals, social programs have Salvadorans been deprived of?" ".
Second president tried for corruption
The six former senior officials tried with Mr. Saca in 2018 are sentenced to terms of ten to three years in prison and the reimbursement of amounts ranging from $ 900,000 to $ 15 million.
Elias Antonio Saca is the second Salvadoran president tried for corruption. The first was Francisco Flores (1999-2004), accused of embezzling fifteen million dollars offered by Taiwan. Placed under house arrest, he died of respiratory arrest in January 2016.
And last August, the El Salvador prosecutor's office indicted another former president, Mauricio Funes (2009-2014) and thirty-one others, former collaborators and relatives. They are all charged with money laundering and embezzlement totaling at least $ 351 million. Since 2016, Funes has lived in Nicaragua, a country that rejected El Salvador's extradition request and granted him Nicaraguan nationality, as well as his spouse and two of his sons.
