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Guatemalan officials resign in murder scandal

Guatemala's head of criminal investigations was removed from his post on Friday and the country's second-highest ranking police official resigned, as part of an investigation into the grisly Feb. 19 slayings of three Salvadoran politicians and their driver.

The two police officials -- Victor Soto, the head of the national criminal investigation division, and Javier Figueroa, the assistant director of the national police -- are not suspects in the killings, which prosecutors said may have been carried out by rogue cops who worked in the criminal investigations division.

Rather, the two were separated from their posts to guarantee the impartiality of investigations into the killings, Interior Minister Carlos Vielman said.

However, the announcement came the same day local media reported that an ex-police informant had filed a complaint alleging that the slain officers' unit had executed suspected car thieves and burglars.

Authorities also said they now have reason to question the original theory that the four rogue cops arrested in the politicians' killings -- and later murdered in prison -- were killed by hitmen who broke into the prison where they were being held.

On Friday, official said they think inmates, not outside attackers, could be responsible for gunning down the four policemen.

Prosecutor Alvaro Matus, who made the announcement, said guards on Thursday had discovered four guns hidden in domestic appliances being removed from gang members' jail cells by family members.

The announcement conflicts with previous declarations by President Oscar Berger -- who said "organized crime gangs" reached the officers' cell last Sunday after getting past eight locked doors at the prison.
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