In the video, Rodrigo Rosenberg said that his life was at risk because “he planned to go public with evidence that the Colom administration used Guatemala’s rural development bank, Banrural, to launder drug money and funnel public funds to drug cartels through shell organizations,” reports Associated Press (AP).

President Alvaro Colom has flatly denied the allegations. “I haven’t killed anyone. I’m not a drug trafficker and I’ve never made shady deals against the opposition. The truth about Rosenberg’s murder will be revealed; the truth about the preparation of the video and the hatching of this plot also will be discovered,” Colom told EFE in an interview.

Colom’s foreign minister has “suggested the entire scandal might be staged by organized crime groups,” according to AP.

Rosenberg has “offered no proof to back up his allegations, but the fact that he foretold his murder … has led to calls for the resignation of Mr. Colom,” notes the New York Times.

“Thousands of protestors have demonstrated daily in front of the presidential palace, calling for Colom’s resignation,” reports Time.

The murder has “polarised society into two camps: mostly middle and upper class protesters who are demanding the centre-left head of state step down and poor demonstrators who support Colom,” writes EFE.

The New York Times reported that "Besides professing his innocence, Mr. Colom has turned the case over to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala," a UN body set up in 2007 to help "strengthen a weak judiciary."

However, Carlos Castresana, head of the UN agency, "warns it will be hard to solve the crime in a judicial system . . . [where] only 3 percent of criminal cases go to trial," according to AP.

Rosenberg’s killing represents one of more than 2,500 on record this year, according to the New York Times, which also notes that on average 16 murder victims turn up in Guatemala every day.

“This is the most serious political crisis the country has faced since the signing of the peace accords [in 1996],” Anita Isaacs, a political science professor at Haverford College and a Guatemala expert, told Time. “The country is hanging by a thread.”

In a statement on its website, Banrural has called for a “full investigation” into Rosenberg’s accusations, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Photo:Flickr/rudygiron