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 A Guatemalan judge ordered Perez on Tuesday to remain in jail
while awaiting trial over a graft scandal that stoked a political
crisis ahead of a presidential election, charging him with criminal
association, taking bribes and customs fraud.
Guatemalan prosecutors and the powerful U.N.-backed anti-graft body
CICIG moved against Perez after months of investigations and
findings taken from some 89,000 telephone taps, almost 6,000 emails
and 17 raids.
In a series of meetings that began early this year, the U.S.
government pressured Guatemala's then-president Perez to rid his
administration of corrupt officials and to renew the CICIG's
mandate, officials with direct knowledge of the talks have told
Reuters.
 "Right now, we see the CICIG as an interference by the United
States, which pressured most for this," Perez told CNN's
Spanish-language television channel in an interview at the military
prison where he is being held.
Asked if he believed the United States had helped oust him by
pushing the corruption probe, he said: "Yes, definitely."
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Perez, a 64-year-old retired general who was elected in late 2011 on
a vow to fight crime and corruption, resigned as president last
week, just as Guatemala headed into the first round of a
presidential election.
He is being held in jail pending a hearing into accusations he made
millions of dollars from a customs racket.
In the interview, Perez denied involvement in the scam that has
implicated several high-ranking officials from his government,
including his former vice president.
More than 20 other officials, including the president of the central
bank, have been arrested in connection with the scam, although it is
still unclear how much money was involved.
(Reporting by David Alire Garcia and Luis Rojas; Editing by Simon
Gardner and Paul Tait)
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