Guatemalan Arranged Own Death, Blamed Prez: UN

A UN investigation has concluded that Rodrigo Rosenberg, the Guatemalan lawyer who recorded a video blaming president Alvaro Colom for his death days before he was gunned down in the street, actually planned his own death. The report says it used phone records to verify that Rosenberg had asked two of his cousins to hire hitmen to take him out.

The bizarre twist will likely shock Guatemala, which was thrown into political turmoil by Rosenberg’s video. “There will probably be an effort to undermine the findings,” one political science professor tells the Wall Street Journal, but the UN’s International Commission Against Impunity is an objective, trustworthy actor. The commission isn’t sure why Rosenberg decided to off himself; the lead investigator speculated that he’d been unhinged by his divorce and wanted to create a "great scandal." (More Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano stories.)