Brothers sought in slaying of high-profile Guatemalan lawyer

[Judi Lynn]

Brothers sought in slaying of high-profile Guatemalan lawyer
By Arthur Brice, CNN
January 6, 2010 8:16 p.m. EST

(CNN) -- Guatemalan authorities have issued arrest warrants for two prominent brothers in connection with last year's slaying of a lawyer who left behind a videotape saying President Alvaro Colom would be responsible if anything happened to him, the suspects' attorney confirmed Wednesday.

The brothers, who own a pharmaceutical company, are in hiding, said their lawyer, Alexis Calderon. He added that he does not know where they are.

Brothers Francisco Jose Valdez Paiz and Jose Estuardo Valdez Paiz were cousins of the slain attorney, Rodrigo Rosenberg.

Calderon denies that his clients, who have not been charged, were involved in the slaying. Under Guatemalan law, arrest warrants can be issued without charges being filed.

He said authorities "won't find a motive. This is a story being made up to implicate people who didn't have anything to do with it."

The arrest warrants were issued December 9, Calderon said. The nation's attorney general's office and other officials have declined to release information on why police are looking for the Valdez Paiz brothers.

Rosenberg was shot and killed in a daylight attack May 10 while riding his bicycle in Guatemala City, the nation's capital.

Eleven men have been arrested in the case. Three of them have testified about who ordered the assassination and what roles the suspects may have played, Guatemalan authorities have said.

According to a tape of one of the men's testimony published by the Prensa Libre, El Periodico and other Guatemalan newspapers last week, suspect Jesus Manuel Cardona Medina said the Valdez Paiz brothers commissioned the slaying. Cardona Medina testified that Rosenberg asked his cousins to find an assassin to kill someone who was blackmailing him, the news reports said.

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