On May 10, 2009, a lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, was shot and killed while riding his bicycle in Guatemala City. Unfortunately, such news is not rare in Guatemala, though the revelations that followed were.
After Rosenberg’s death, it was discovered that he had recorded a video (embedded to the right) in which he begins:
My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. And, regrettably, if you are watching or listening to this message right now, it’s because I was killed by President Alvaro Colom [of Guatemala].
Rosenberg goes on to claim that he was assassinated because he knew of the President’s complicity, along with his wife and several aides, in the death of his client Khalil Musa, a prominent businessman who Rosenberg says was killed along with his daughter Marjorie because he unwittingly became a pawn in an extortion scam involving Banrural, Guatemala’s largest bank. Rosenberg’s impassioned 18-minute video is filled with general statements about the condition of Guatemala that pulled on the heart strings of many who watched.
However, yesterday, in a shocking revelation, Carlos Castresana, the head of the UN’s International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, announced a David-Gale-style twist:
Who planned the act? We have to conclude that it was Rodrigo Rosenberg himself. He decided to sacrifice his life in exchange for a change in the country. There can be no other explanation.
The Commission — powered by over 300 people from 11 different countries — discovered that Rosenberg had hired two brothers, cousins of his first wife, to find a hit man for $40,000. They did not know he was to be the target. Rosenberg bought two new cell phones to maintain the subterfuge.
Rosenberg had been in a fragile mental state, caused by an ugly divorce and the death of his mother and Marjorie Musa, who, it turns out, was Rosenberg’s girlfriend. There are also reports that Rosenberg had bought two graves — one for him and one for Marjorie — and that he had clearly worked to get his affairs in order.