Judge Asked to Locate Embattled Guatemalan President

A Guatemalan judge has been presented with a request to locate the country’s President Otto Perez Molina, who has not been seen in public for over 48 hours.

teleSUR correspondent in the Central American nation, Mario Rosales, said Sunday’s legal measures were brought forward by individual citizens, and seeks to determine whereabouts of the president, who is facing growing calls for his resignation due to a massive corruption scandal that has rocked the country.

The legal actions were filed due to concerns that Perez Molina – who has been implicated in a customs fraud case that resulted in the arrest of Vice President Roxana Baldetti on Friday – might try to flee the country.

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Baldetti resigned on May 8 when prosecutors charged her former private secretary, Juan Carlos Monzon, with heading up a fraud ring called "The Line." The fraud and smuggling scheme is said to have illegally brought in at least 500 containers into the country. Twenty-seven employees and individuals are under arrest for cooperation in the scam.

While Perez Molina has not be charged in the matter, officials from a U.N. anti-corruption body have stated that the leader was involved in the operation.

"We have to say, at the head of the structure (of the ring) is the president of the Republic, Otto Perez Molina, and the vice president at that time, Ingrid Roxana Baldetti" said Colombian lawyer Ivan Velasquez, head of the U.N.'s anti-impunity commission CICIG.

Business leaders have urged Perez Molina to resign, while Economy Minister Sergio de la Torre and Education Minister Cynthia del Aguila Saturday – a day after the attorney general asked for permission to prosecute the former general.

"I took office without political affiliation. We're disappointed and cannot continue in our posts," de la Torre told reporters.

​Perez Molina, who has only months remaining in his term, has denied any wrongdoing.