GUATEMALA CITY – When Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora After being imprisoned for more than two years without a conviction, he returned home to find it empty. He said the place smelled of abandonment after his family fled the country, fearing they would face the same fate as him.

On Monday, one week after releaseIn an interview with The Associated Press, Zamora discussed his own uncertain future in the shadow of efforts to keep him behind bars and his concern for other journalists doing the kind of investigative work he does.

Zamora said that not only were Guatemalan journalists forced into exile under threat of prosecution — including eight from the El Periódico broadcaster he founded — but those left behind grappled with the fear that they “could end up in prison” if they investigated.

The 68-year-old journalist who attracts attention is shy and not keen on being the target of news.

He said he can still feel in his bones the aftermath of his prison sentence and being forced to sell his belongings to finance his legal defense, but he can also feel it in his daily life, ice skating with the support of his children.

“Obviously, it’s complicated by the feeling of not having any money, which is my money, and I don’t have the means to go around,” he said.

The interview comes after a long journey for Zamora, who has spent the last three decades working as a journalist. For twenty-four of those years, he served as president of El Periódico, the news organization he founded to investigate corruption. Guatemala.

In a country like Guatemala, where the attorney general’s office is located, this is a dangerous issue to investigate. Election facilities were raidedThey confiscated and opened ballot boxes and targeted the Seed Movement party in an attempt to prevent current President Bernardo Arévalo from taking office.

Zamora believes it is his newspaper’s investigative work that has led to him being targeted by prosecutors to this day. It was his particularly harsh criticism. former President Alejandro Giammattei and his ally, current Attorney General Consuelo Porras, who was sanctioned by the United States for allegedly obstructing corruption investigations.

Porras’ agents raided Zamora’s home in July 2022 and arrested him, accusing him of money laundering, after Zamora asked a friend to deposit $38,000 that Zamora said was a donation to his news organization.

Zamora said the donor did not deposit the money in the bank himself because he feared retaliation for his support of the media outlet. He was initially found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison; This decision was annulled due to procedural errors.

He was later accused of falsifying documents and tried a second time for allegedly lying in the first case against him.

He was finally released in late October after a judge said his two-year pre-trial detention violated national and international human rights law.

One of his first visitors after his release President Arévalo.

“I explained to him that Guatemala has never had institutions dedicated to control or strict supervision,” Zamora said. “This is why the press is so important: There is no prosecution or punishment for those who commit corruption, instead there are firewalls of ‘impunity.”

Zamora said he was happy to finally talk to his family, but it was clear he was still living with the effects of two years in prison and a deep sense of uncertainty about what would happen next.

After his arrest, his newspaper El Periódico disappeared. Eight of the journalists and columnists, like his family, live in exile because they published articles about abuse of power by judges and prosecutors, including his own case.

Since then Porras remains attorney generalZamora worries he could be jailed once again.

He said he was unemployed and worried about his friends, family and even the people he talked to at the prosecutor’s office when he went for regular check-ups.

“I’m worried about people greeting me because they might face some consequences,” he said.

All that was left of his old life were stacks of newspapers in his garage.

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