Ex-President in House Arrest
After Return to Costa Rica
By Steven J. Barry
Tico Times Staff
sbarry@ticotimes.net

A Costa Rican judge has ordered Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, former Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), to six months in house arrest in an apartment complex east of San José.

Rodríguez, who is under investigation for alleged corruption during his term as Costa Rica's President (1998-2002), was arrested and handcuffed as he stepped off a Grupo TACA flight from Washington, D.C. via El Salvador, which touched down in Costa Rica at approximately 2:18 p.m. on Friday.

The former head of state was immediately transferred to a paddy wagon waiting for him on the tarmac of the Juan Santamaría International Airport, just outside San José in Alajuela.

Hundreds of Ticos came out of their homes and workplaces and lined up on the highway and sat on overpasses between the airport and the Prosecutor's Office in downtown San José, watching for the police caravan that took him.

When the caravan arrived at its destination, a crowd of hundreds was waiting, screaming and cursing as the vehicle entered the parking garage beneath the building. A few crowd members attempted to enter the garage, but were stopped by agents of the Judicial Investigation Police (OIJ).

After the gate to the parking garage was closed, OIJ agents attempted to close a pull-down metal door over it, but members of the crowd pushed it back up and banged on it with fists and umbrellas, eventually damaging it to the point that it would not close.

Dozens pressed against the gate, shouting “Thief!” and demanding that Rodríguez show his face to the people, until police arrived to push them back.

When a vehicle containing Rodríguez's luggage arrived, it was immediately surrounded by crowd members shouting “There's the money!” and pounding on the car until it pulled away.

Luis Hernández, in command of the police at the building, said he thought the crowd's reaction was “normal.”

Rodríguez reportedly fainted just after entering the Prosecutor's Office, Judicial Branch spokesman Fabián Barrantes told Agence France Presse (AFP) wire service. During a two-hour talk with prosecutors, the former President rejected the charges against him, according to the daily newspapers.

His defense attorney, Rafael Gairaud, told the daily La Nación that the information being handled by the Prosecutor's Office “is the version of an accused suspect seeking impunity by attributing false responsibilities to don Miguel Ángel.”

During a meeting with Costa Rican prosecutors on Sept. 30, José Antonio Lobo, a former board member of the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) and a former minister during the Rodríguez administration, said the ex-President had accepted 60% of a $2.4 million “prize” allegedly paid by the French firm Alcatel for a government telecommunications contract it obtained during the Rodríguez administration.

Lobo said Rodríguez had promised him the remaining 40% of the “prize.”

On Oct. 8, Lobo voluntarily expanded his testimony and told prosecutors that Rodríguez, at the end of 2002 or the beginning of 2003, ordered him to give him “various thousands of dollars” of the Alcatel money.

That same day, Rodríguez announced in a letter in Washington D.C. that he would resign from his post as Secretary General of the OAS, effective last Friday – one month after he took office as the first Central American to hold the organization's top post. During his final days in office last week, Rodríguez said he would return to Costa Rica to offer explanations.

On Saturday, Rodríguez was transferred to the private hospital Clínica Católica, where he received treatment for problems related to high blood pressure. He was released later that day and transferred to a condominium in Vargas Araya, San Pedro, just east of San José, where he will stay for the next six months.

The house-arrest order was issued by a San José judge, who denied the Chief Prosecutor's request that Rodríguez be ordered to nine months of preventive detention in an area jail, La Nación reported.

Rodríguez is under investigation for the alleged crimes of illicit enrichment, accepting bribes and aggravated corruption, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

Chief Prosecutor Francisco Dall'Anese on Friday said Rodríguez could face up to ten years in prison is he is found guilty of the charges, AFP reported.