Guatemala court stays expulsion of U.N. anti-graft official probing president

By Sofia Menchu GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala's Constitutional Court on Sunday suspended an order by President Jimmy Morales to expel the head of an influential U.N. anti-graft unit investigating campaign financing, setting the stage for political instability in the Central American nation. The court also said the foreign, defense and interior ministers should not participate in removing from the country Ivan Velasquez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG). Speaking in a video published on his Facebook account earlier on Sunday, the president had said Velasquez must leave national territory with immediate effect. An innovative U.N. body with powers to investigate crime and corruption, CICIG was instrumental in removing Guatemala's former president from office in 2015 after identifying him as a key player in an alleged multi-million-dollar corruption racket. Morales took office in 2016, winning the election on an anti-corruption ticket after his predecessor was brought down. Morales declaration that Velasquez was "persona non grata" came days after CICIG said the president should be investigated over alleged illicit funding during his election campaign. Many politicians in Guatemala consider the body to be a violation of national sovereignty, while anti-graft activists credit it with cleaning up government. Protesters gathered on Sunday outside CICIG's offices and the court in support of Velasquez, a veteran prosecutor who previously investigated drug cartels and paramilitary groups in his home country Colombia. Guatemalan foreign minister Carlos Raul Morales left the government on Sunday, according to the ministry's Twitter account. The circumstances of his departure were not immediately clear, but the former minister, who is not related to the president, said on Friday he would resign if Velasquez was forced out. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was "shocked" by Morales' move, and called on Guatemalan authorities to treat Velasquez with respect. Representative Eliot Engel of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs said he was "extremely disappointed" by the decision to expel Velasquez and called on the State Department and Congress to examine the future of U.S. assistance to the Guatemalan government. "CICIG has played a transformational role in combating corruption and impunity in Guatemala," he said in a statement. (Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Andrew Hay and Andrea Ricci)