GUATEMALA CITY — A Guatemalan lawyer who accused the country’s president of his murder in a video made before his death actually contracted the hitmen to kill him, U.N. investigators announced Tuesday.
Attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg contacted cousins of his first wife to help him find a hitman to deal with an extortionist — when he really was orchestrating his own slaying amid severe personal problems, according to a special international group commissioned by the government.
Carlos Castresana, head of the probe into the May 10 killing, said evidence shows Rosenberg bought two cellphones: one to communicate with his killers and another to deliver threatening messages to his own personal phone.
Distress over personal problems and Rosenberg’s suspicion that the government was behind the murder of his girlfriend and her father appear to have motivated the Harvard-educated corporate lawyer, the investigation suggested.
Castresana said that blaming President Alvaro Colom apparently was a way of shaking up the powers that be.
