GUATEMALA CITY (AP) – A former Guatemalan president sentenced to nearly six years in U.S. prison for accepting $2.5 million in bribes from Taiwan was released Wednesday and headed back to his home country.
Alfonso Portillo left the minimum-security facility in suburban Denver where he had been incarcerated since last year. He was credited with time served in Guatemala, where he faces no further charges.
“He is considered a free man in Guatemala,” said Libna Bonilla, deputy chief of mission at the Central American nation’s embassy in Washington.
Accompanied by the Guatemalan consul in Denver, Portillo was taking commercial flights to Houston and on to Guatemala City, Bonilla said. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed Portillo’s release from the Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado.
Several political parties back home have already expressed interest in working with Portillo despite his imprisonment.
“Our party’s ranks are open to (his) participation,” said Mario Estrada, secretary-general of the Union of National Change. “What party would not want him, with the level of leadership and experience he has?”
Portillo was sentenced in federal court in New York in 2014 after he pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy for accepting $2.5 million from Taiwan to continue Guatemala’s diplomatic recognition of the island government. U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson also ordered Portillo to forfeit $2.5 million.
Federal prosecutors said the bribes threatened the integrity of U.S. banks because Portillo laundered the money through U.S. financial institutions, making them “a vehicle for moving bad money.”
Taiwan said at the time that it rejected “checkbook diplomacy,” a term often used to describe its competition with China to win formal recognition from nations around the world.
Portillo, 63, was Guatemala’s president from 2000 to 2004. After leaving office he moved to Mexico and worked as a financial adviser for a construction materials company.
He was extradited to Guatemala in 2008 to face embezzlement charges and remained free until he was arrested in 2010 on a U.S. extradition request. He was captured at a beach preparing to flee Guatemala by boat, and finally sent to the United States in 2013.
Portillo acknowledged accepting the money from Taiwan between December 1999, shortly before he became president, and August 2002.
In 2011, a Guatemalan court found Portillo not guilty of charges that he stole $15 million from Guatemala’s Defense Department.
His Guatemalan attorney confirmed that no charges are pending.
“Not having any charges was a requirement when the extradition was carried out,” lawyer David Pineda said. “Today there is no case against him.”
Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the airport in the capital to await Portillo’s arrival, brandishing signs with his picture amid mariachi music and the pop of firecrackers.
“He was a great president for us poor people,” said Teresa Fernandez, a homemaker. “Perhaps with the experience he brings, things will work better.”
But Archbishop Oscar Vian lamented in a Sunday homily that the country too “easily forgets” past misdeeds.
“It’s not a secret, (Portillo’s) life, what he did,” Vian said. “He admitted stealing, and so the people have to see all that.”
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Associated Press writer P. Solomon Banda in Denver contributed to this report.