Mexico agrees to extradite Guatemalan ex-president

MEXICO CITY, Nov 1 (Reuters) Mexico has authorized the extradition of Guatemala's former president, Alfonso Portillo, to his home country, where he is wanted on charges of fraudulent use of public funds, a government official said.

Portillo, who won office promising to redistribute wealth in Guatemala, slipped to Mexico amid a wave of arrests of his former cabinet members accused of massive corruption when his four-year term ended in 2004.

''The ministry signed the document to extradite him,'' an official at Mexico's Foreign Ministry told Reuters yesterday.

Guatemala's Attorney General's Office says Portillo diverted 15.7 million dollars slated for the Defense Ministry to his own accounts. It began extradition proceedings last year.

Portillo now has 20 days to appeal against the order, which will be confirmed or denied by a judge.

The former president, known for his love of fine rum, won office in 2000 as a candidate for the party of one-time dictator Efrain Rios Montt. During the campaign, Portillo admitted to killing three Mexicans in the 1980s, boosting his image as a tough man.

A Spanish judge in July called for Rios Montt's arrest on genocide charges and prosecutors in Guatemala are studying evidence collected from survivors of a scorched-earth policy during Rios Montt's rule to see if he can be tried at home.

Rios Montt governed in the early 1980s, at the height of Guatemala's 36-year civil war, and is accused by rights groups of masterminding brutal massacres in Maya Indian villages believed to be sympathetic to leftist rebels.

A U N-backed report has said 200,000 people, mainly Mayan, were killed before the war ended with peace agreements in 1996.

REUTERS MS KP0919