GUATEMALA CITY — A Guatemalan judge ordered that imprisoned journalist José Rubén Zamora be returned to house arrest while awaiting trial after nearly a year behind bars in his most recent period of incarceration, The Associated Press reported Thursday.
Zamora, 69, is the founder of El Periodico. AP reported that the judge’s decision followed his latest return to jail and that he will remain under house arrest as the case continues.
The AP report said Zamora had been granted house arrest in October 2024 after spending more than two years in custody awaiting trial. Prosecutors appealed that decision and then won rulings that sent him back to jail in March 2025, according to AP.
Before that cycle of detention and house arrest, AP reported that Zamora had been imprisoned since July 2022. At that time, prosecutors charged him with money laundering involving about $38,000.
AP also reported that in June 2023 a court sentenced Zamora to six years in prison, but an appeals court later overturned the sentence because of errors in the process. With the legal case ongoing, Zamora has faced additional periods of incarceration, including the nearly yearlong stint that ended with the new house-arrest order.
Zamora and free press advocates, AP reported, have said the prosecution is revenge linked to investigative work by his newspaper against the administration of former President Alejandro Giammattei.
President Bernardo Arévalo, according to AP, last year called the case “absolutely spurious” and said it was another example of the Attorney General’s office prosecuting people who reported corruption.