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Disgraced Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina claims he’s victim of a ‘soft coup’ by US

DISGRACED Guatemalan ex-president Otto Perez Molina accused the US on Wednesday of overthrowing him in a “soft coup.”

Mr Perez was jailed on remand on Tuesday over corruption charges as part of an import duty-dodging scandal dubbed La Linea.

He had already resigned prior to last Sunday’s presidential election after Congress voted to strip him of his presidential immunity from prosecution.

But in an interview with US news channel CNN, Mr Perez accused Washington of using the UN’s International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) as a Trojan horse.

“In reality we see the CICIG as an intervention of United States,” he said.

“It is the United States meddling, because it is they who are giving orders to the commission.”

He said that behind his downfall were a series of “geopolitical interests, not only in Guatemala, but extending to Honduras and El Salvador.”

In August, Reuters said that the United States had pressed Mr Perez into supporting the CICIG.

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