A video left by a slain Guatemalan lawyer, in which he blames his death on the president of Guatemala and several close presidential associates, has plunged the country into political crisis.
The lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was gunned down Sunday morning as he bicycled in the capital, Guatemala City. In a video distributed to the media after his funeral Monday, Mr. Rosenberg named four people he said were responsible for his killing: President Álvaro Colom; his private secretary, Gustavo Alejos; the president's wife, Sandra de Colom; and a businessman, Gregorio Valdez.
"If you are hearing or seeing this message it's because I was assassinated by President Álvaro Colom, with the help of Mr. Gustavo Alejos and Mr. Gregorio Valdez," says Mr. Rosenberg. Later in the video, he repeats the accusation, adding Ms. Colom to the list of his alleged assassins, and says they were also responsible for the deaths of two of his clients. The 47-year-old made the tape Wednesday, according to a close friend.
Flanked by his cabinet and other officials, Mr. Colom went on nationwide television late Monday to condemn what he called "this vile murder." The president said he categorically rejected Mr. Rosenberg's posthumous accusation that he, his wife, or his private secretary were responsible. The president's office didn't return calls seeking comment.
Mr. Valdez didn't return phone messages left at his home.
Mr. Colom also said he had ordered Guatemala's attorney general to investigate the matter "to the final consequences," and had asked the United Nations and friendly governments to provide technical help with the probe.
Otto Perez, secretary-general of the opposition Patriot Party, called on Mr. Colom to step aside during the investigation, according to the Associated Press. Several hundred people, including relatives of Mr. Rosenberg, demonstrated in front of the presidential palace on Tuesday to demand Mr. Colom's resignation.
Guatemala, which suffered a 36-year civil war in which 100,000 people died before it ended in 1996, has been plagued by violence and corruption for years.
Mr. Colom, a left-of-center social democrat, won the presidency in 2007. Some analysts say he and his wife hope to extend their rule, becoming a Guatemalan version of the Kirchners of Argentina, where former President Nestor Kirchner was succeeded by his wife.
View Full Image Associated Press A worker guards the body of Rodrigo Rosenberg, who was slain by gunmen in Guatemala City Sunday.
"The shockwaves from this will be huge," said Marco Antonio Barahona, an analyst with the Association for Research and Social Studies, a think tank in Guatemala City.
Analysts say the people responsible for the killing may be tied to organized-crime networks that sprang from paramilitary and military groups with their genesis in the civil war.
"This speaks to the incredible violence that takes place every day in Guatemala from organized criminal networks that have infiltrated the state," said Anita Isaacs, a professor of political science at Haverford College and a Guatemala expert. Ms. Isaacs says last year may have been Guatemala's most violent on record, with an estimated 6,000 murders. Among the victims: judges and human-rights activists.
On the video, Mr. Rosenberg says he has been killed because of his defense of two clients, businessman Khalil Musa and his daughter, who were gunned down in March. No one has been charged in those murders, for which Mr. Rosenberg, in the video, blames Mr. Colom, his wife, and Messrs. Alejos and Valdez. Mr. Rosenberg says Mr. Musa and his daughter were killed because Mr. Musa refused to go along with corrupt business deals at quasi-state-run Banrural, one of Guatemala's largest banks. Mr. Musa had recently been named to the bank's board by Mr. Colom.
Mr. Musa "didn't suspect the illegal and million-dollar deals that are negotiated daily at Banrural, which range from money laundering to misuse of public funds to finance nonexisting programs run by the president's wife Sandra de Colom as well as financing shell companies used by drug traffickers," wrote Mr. Rosenberg in a statement that he left for the media along with the video.
"First, I'm not an assassin, second, I'm not a drug dealer and everything that [Rosenberg] says is totally senseless," said Mr. Colom at a press conference. Ms. Colom hasn't responded publicly to any of the accusations.
Police searched Banrural's offices Tuesday morning. The bank, in a statement on its Web site, called for a full investigation of Mr. Rosenberg's accusations.
—David Luhnow contributed to this article.
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14
Guatemala police arrested I.T. professional Jean Ramses Anleu Fernández at his Guatemala City home on Thursday on charges of having incited financial panic via messages posted to the Twitter social networking web site. Known as "Jeanfer" on Twitter, Anleu Fernández's home was raided and his computer seized after he posted a message (known as a "tweet") on Tuesday afternoon proposing that people  a response to high profile allegations that the Guatemalan Banrural bank is involved in corruption.

The logo of social networking web site, TwitterAnleu Fernández's message was posted with the tag "#escandalogt," identifying it as part of an ongoing discussion on the scandal that broke on Monday when a video recorded by assassinated Guatemalan attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg was distributed at Rosenberg's funeral and posted to the Internet. In the video, recorded days before he was shot while riding his bicycle in Guatemala City, Rosenberg accuses President of Guatemala Álvaro Colom of complicity in his death. Rosenberg also accused President Colom of responsibility for the April murder of Rosenberg's client, Khalil Musa, alleging that Musa was killed because he refused to cooperate in corrupt business deals operating within the structure of Banrural, a partly state-run bank. Musa had been appointed by President Colom to the board of Banrural.

Anleu Fernández was arrested according to a law which specifies fines of Q5,000-Q50,000 Guatemalan quetzales (about $600-$6,000 U.S. dollars) and 1-3 years of prison for those who  of an institution under the jurisdiction of the Superintendent of Banks. Prosecutor Genaro Pacheco told journalists that Anleu Fernández admitted to sending the message in question.