GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced Sunday he is expelling the head of a U.N. anti-corruption commission that is investigating the president’s campaign financing.

A video posted on the government’s Twitter site showed Morales declaring Ivan Velasquez “non grata” and ordering him to leave the country immediately. He also announced he was firing Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales for failure to carry out the expulsion.

Velasquez heads a 10-year-old commission of experts that has worked with Guatemalan prosecutors to root out corruption in the country. It was key to bringing down former President Otto Perez Molina, who was forced to resign in 2015 and remains in prison.

Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana, working with the U.N. commission, announced on Friday that she was asking the Supreme Court recommend stripping Morales of his immunity from prosecution in order to investigate financing of his 2015 campaign, when he ran on the slogan “Neither corrupt nor a crook.” If the court agrees, the decision on immunity would be made by Congress.

The prosecutor said Morales had refused to account for more than $800,000 in campaign financing and had hidden his own party’s accounts.

Some 2,500 people demonstrated in the capital on Saturday to demand Morales resign.</s>President Jimmy Morales announced Sunday that he was expelling the head of a U.N. anti-corruption commission that is investigating his campaign's financing — only to have the order quickly blocked by Guatemala's top court.

Morales' move also drew criticism from the international community, including the United States, and at least two protests sprang up in the capital to decry the order.

A video posted on the government's Twitter site early Sunday showed Morales declaring Ivan Velasquez "non grata" and ordering him to leave the country immediately. The president also announced he was firing Foreign Minister Carlos Raul Morales for failing to carry out the expulsion.

Morales said nothing of kicking out the entire commission of foreign experts, but the expulsion would leave its future unclear. The decade-old panel has worked with Guatemalan prosecutors to root out corruption and was key to bringing down former President Otto Perez Molina, who was forced to resign in 2015 and remains in prison.

Within hours, Francisco de Mata Vela, head of Guatemala's Constitutional Court, said that body had issued a temporary injunction blocking the order to expel Velasquez. The court will now analyze the case before reaching a definitive decision. It was not clear how long that would take.

Morales released another video at midafternoon affirming his decision to boot Velasquez. He said Velasquez overstepped his authority by improperly pressuring the country's legislative process and making public accusations against Guatemalans in spite of a presumption of innocence and guarantee of due process.

Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana, working with the U.N. commission, announced Friday that she was asking the top court to recommend stripping Morales of his immunity from prosecution in order to investigate financing of his 2015 campaign, when he ran on the slogan, "Neither corrupt nor a crook." If the court agrees, the decision on immunity would be made by Congress.

The prosecutor said Morales had refused to account for more than $800,000 in campaign financing and had hidden his own party's accounts. Velasquez said at the joint news conference with Aldana that financing of some campaign expenditures could not be explained.

The embassies of international donor countries that support the U.N. commission — United States, Germany, Canada, Spain, France, Britain, Sweden and Switzerland as well as the European Union — issued a joint statement regretting Morales' decision.

The commission "has played a vital role in the fight against impunity and corruption that undermine security and prosperity in Guatemala. The decision to expel Commissioner Ivan Velasquez harms the ability of [the commission] to achieve its mandate," the statement said.

U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed disappointment in Morales' decision. In a statement, he said the U.S. government would examine the future of its foreign assistance to Guatemala.

Later Sunday, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that the U.S. was "deeply concerned" by Morales' decision. She said Velasquez has been an effective leader of the commission and "it remains crucial that [the commission] be permitted to work free from interference by the Guatemalan government."

Guatemala's human rights prosecutor, Jordan Rodas, joined in one of the demonstrations at which people shouted support for Velasquez. He also spent time with Velasquez to guarantee his safety and said Velasquez stressed that he continued to lead the commission.

"The commissioner was doing well and is very appreciative of the support," Rodas said.

Health Minister Lucrecia Hernandez Mack and her deputies resigned, saying that by expelling Velasquez, Morales had taken a position in favor of impunity and the corrupt sectors of the country.

The president's action Sunday capped days of speculation that Morales would move against Velasquez. The president traveled to the U.N. last week to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the government said topics included circumscribing the mandate of the anti-corruption commission led by Velasquez.

Mike Allison, a political science professor at the University of Scranton, said that by the time Morales arrived in New York, the international community had made clear Velasquez had its full backing. That left Morales in a difficult position of either waiting for the commission's investigation to proceed and potentially force him from office or be proactive and push Velasquez out, Allison said.

Allison said the commission and the prosecutors and investigators it has helped train represent Guatemala's best hope for a better future. "An attack upon them is an attack upon everyone in Guatemala who is fighting for a better country," he said.

In May, a Guatemalan judge ordered that the brother and son of Morales stand trial on fraud charges. They are accused of submitting about $23,000 of false receipts in a tax fraud scheme in 2013, before Morales took office. Both have maintained their innocence.

Perez Molina resigned along with his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, in 2015 and both remain jailed awaiting trial on corruption charges related to a huge customs fraud scheme.

They have also been investigated on charges of bribery and money laundering stemming from a criminal graft network. Prosecutors alleged that Perez Molina received about $37.9 million from companies in return for awarding construction contracts. He also is accused of accepting a helicopter, a sports car, a plane and other gifts.</s>GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Two days after prosecutors announced they would seek to lift Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales’ immunity, he ordered the expulsion of the head of a highly praised U.N. anti-corruption commission and plunged into a faceoff with the nation’s top court and the international community.

It was a stunning reversal for a president whose predecessor had been forced to resign by the same body’s investigation two years earlier and who campaigned as the panel’s biggest advocate. “Neither corrupt nor a crook” was Morales’ campaign slogan.

What happened between the television comedian taking office in January 2016 and the constitutional crisis he provoked Sunday was that the U.N. commission and the aggressive Guatemalan prosecutors it has helped train over the past decade turned their sights on him and allegations of illegal campaign financing.

Morales has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and rumors swirled last week that Morales’ visit to U.N. headquarters in New York was to get rid of the commission’s head, Ivan Velasquez. By Friday afternoon, Velasquez stood beside chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana to announce that they were asking a court to start the process for removing Morales’ immunity from prosecution, a move that would eventually need the support of congress.

“It’s based on his own personal interest,” Jo-Marie Burt, a senior fellow with the Washington Office on Latin America and a professor in the school of public policy and government at George Mason University, said of Morales’ decision to oust Velasquez.

That order quickly ran into Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, which temporarily suspended the expulsion while it studies the case, based on arguments that Morales had a fundamental conflict of interest. At least one Cabinet minister resigned in protest and the foreign minister was fired for refusing to expel Velasquez, people gathered in the capital in several spots to demonstrate against the decree, and the United States, European Union and others expressed deep concern about the president’s action.

Not only are prosecutors investigating the campaign financing of the party led by the Morales, but his brother and son have been ordered to stand trial for an alleged tax fraud scheme.

Morales remained defiant, issuing another statement later Sunday saying he stood by his original order in spite of what the court ruled.

“He’s pushing the country into a constitutional crisis,” Burt said.

The chief prosecutor had said previously that she would resign if Velasquez was removed, so Morales may have been hoping that he could get rid of the two leaders of the country’s anti-graft efforts. But once the court stepped in, Aldana said she was staying as chief prosecutor, dissent appeared within the president’s administration and protesters took to the streets.

Working together, local prosecutors and the U.N. panel have won popularity over the last decade by beginning to hack away at corruption long endemic in Guatemala, including forcing Otto Perez Molina from the presidency in 2015.

“An attack upon them is an attack upon everyone in Guatemala who is fighting for a better country,” said Mike Allison, a political science professor at the University of Scranton.

Though some people worried Sunday about the potential for the government to declare a state of emergency and try to use security forces to clamp down, both Allison and Burt predicted Morales won’t be able to hold onto power given the new political climate in Guatemala. “It’s going to be a matter of days, maybe even hours,” Burt said. “His presidency in my mind is over.”

Two years ago, corruption allegations against Perez Molina and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, were mounting and public protests went on for months. Eventually both resigned quietly and they remain in jail awaiting trial.

Perez Molina’s resignation was a crowning achievement for the commission, which has become a powerful voice against corruption in the public square and gained widespread support.

Elizabeth Oglesby, a professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, said Morales and his advisers “miscalculated about the broader political moment.”

She said perhaps they thought that with the political upheaval in the United States there would be little attention paid to Guatemala.

Instead, the U.S. and other donor countries that support the commission issued a joint statement within hours voicing their support for Velasquez. The U.S. State Department then issued a separate statement saying “it remains crucial that (the commission) be permitted to work free from interference by the Guatemalan government.”

Associated Press writer Sonia Perez D. reported this story in Guatemala City and AP writer Christopher Sherman reported from Mexico City.</s>Guatemala's president is moving to expel the head of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG in Spanish, though he has been blocked for now by the country's top court. Background on the commission and its role in Guatemala:

Guatemala's congress, under heavy international pressure, voted in 2007 to ratify the commission, which is made up of foreign experts to help local law enforcement build cases and gain expertise in fighting organized crime and government corruption. The country had seen an explosion of drug gang violence and graft in the decade after the end of a 1960-1996 civil war in which 200,000 people died. Opponents said the commission was an unconstitutional violation of Guatemala's sovereignty.

The commission first went after police corruption and drug gang enforcers and kidnappers. Its recommendations led to the firing or resignation of more than 1,700 police officers, several senior prosecutors and six Supreme Court judges.

Its scope rapidly expanded to broader political corruption, and it has helped prosecute former and interior ministers for crimes that included the slayings of prison inmates. Its crowning achievement was the 2015 resignation of President Otto Perez Molina and Roxana Baldetti, who remain jailed awaiting trial on charges.

The wide-ranging investigations have swept up many business people, politicians and bureaucrats. A judge this year gave prosecutors the green light to move ahead with a corruption probe of current President Jimmy Morales' son and brother.

The country's chief prosecutor, together with Velasquez, announced Friday that they were moving to strip Morales himself of his immunity from prosecution in order to probe alleged irregularities in the financing of his 2015 presidential campaign. If the Supreme Court approved the request, it would be up to congress to decide on removing immunity.

Morales didn't address the future of the commission itself when he issued his expulsion order Sunday, an action that was quickly blocked by the Court. CICIG's current mandate, approved by the government and the U.N., extends through September 2019.

Guatemalan political forces have repeatedly tried to get rid of the commission, but public and international pressure has forced them to back off and renew its two-year terms.

The citizens of other countries in the region have watched its work admiringly, but paradoxically its success in prosecuting top politicians in Guatemala has made it unlikely that another leader in the region would invite the creation of such a commission.</s>GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales announced Sunday he was expelling the head of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as CICIG in Spanish. But the move was quickly blocked by the country's top court. Background on the commission and its role in Guatemala:

Guatemala's Congress, under heavy international pressure, voted in 2007 to ratify the commission, which is made up of foreign experts to help local law enforcement build cases and gain expertise in fighting organized crime and police corruption. The country had seen an explosion of drug gang violence and corruption in the decade after the end of a 1960-1996 civil war in which 200,000 people died. Opponents said the commission was an unconstitutional violation of Guatemala's sovereignty.

The commission began by going after police corruption and drug gang enforcers and kidnappers. Its recommendations led to the firing or resignation of more than 1,700 police officers, several senior prosecutors and six Supreme Court judges.

Its scope rapidly expanded to broader political corruption. In 2008, it helped prosecutors build a case accusing former President Alfonso Portillo of stealing millions from the country's department. While a local court absolved him, Portillo was extradited to the U.S. and served time on money laundering charges. In 2010, it helped clear President Alvaro Colom of allegations he'd orchestrated the murder of a prominent lawyer. It also helped prosecute former and interior ministers for cases including the slayings of prison inmates.

Its crowning achievement was the 2015 resignation of then-President Otto Perez Molina and his Vice-President Roxana Baldetti, who remain jailed awaiting trial on a variety of corruption charges. The wide-ranging investigations have swept up many business people, politicians and bureaucrats. A judge this year gave prosecutors the green light to move ahead with a corruption probe of President Jimmy Morales' son and brother.

The country's chief prosecutor, together with Velasquez, announced Friday that they were moving to strip Morales himself of his immunity from prosecution in order to probe alleged irregularities in the financing of his 2015 presidential campaign. If the Supreme Court approved the request, it would be up to Congress to decide on removing immunity.

Morales didn't address the future of the commission itself. Its current mandate, approved by the government and the U.N., extends through September 2019. The Court injunction blocking expulsion of Velasquez means Morales the future of order itself is in question.

Guatemalan political forces have repeatedly tried to get rid of the commission, but public and international pressure has forced them to back off and renew its two-year terms.

The citizens of other countries in the region have watched its work admiringly, but paradoxically its success in prosecuting top politicians in Guatemala has made it unlikely that another leader in the region would invite the creation of such a commission.</s>GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Two days after prosecutors announced they would seek to lift Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales’ immunity, he ordered the expulsion of the head of a highly praised U.N. anti-corruption commission and plunged into a faceoff with the nation’s top court and the international community.

It was a stunning reversal for a president whose predecessor had been forced to resign by the same body’s investigation two years earlier and who campaigned as the panel’s biggest advocate. “Neither corrupt nor a crook” was Morales’ campaign slogan.

What happened between the television comedian taking office in January 2016 and the constitutional crisis he provoked Sunday was that the U.N. commission and the aggressive Guatemalan prosecutors it has helped train over the past decade turned their sights on him and allegations of illegal campaign financing.

Morales has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and rumors swirled last week that Morales’ visit to U.N. headquarters in New York was to get rid of the commission’s head, Ivan Velasquez. By Friday afternoon, Velasquez stood beside chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana to announce that they were asking a court to start the process for removing Morales’ immunity from prosecution, a move that would eventually need the support of congress.

“It’s based on his own personal interest,” Jo-Marie Burt, a senior fellow with the Washington Office on Latin America and a professor in the school of public policy and government at George Mason University, said of Morales’ decision to oust Velasquez.

That order quickly ran into Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, which temporarily suspended the expulsion while it studies the case, based on arguments that Morales had a fundamental conflict of interest. At least one Cabinet minister resigned in protest and the foreign minister was fired for refusing to expel Velasquez, people gathered in the capital in several spots to demonstrate against the decree, and the United States, European Union and others expressed deep concern about the president’s action.

Not only are prosecutors investigating the campaign financing of the party led by the Morales, but his brother and son have been ordered to stand trial for an alleged tax fraud scheme.

Morales remained defiant, issuing another statement later Sunday saying he stood by his original order in spite of what the court ruled.

“He’s pushing the country into a constitutional crisis,” Burt said.

The chief prosecutor had said previously that she would resign if Velasquez was removed, so Morales may have been hoping that he could get rid of the two leaders of the country’s anti-graft efforts. But once the court stepped in, Aldana said she was staying as chief prosecutor, dissent appeared within the president’s administration and protesters took to the streets.

Working together, local prosecutors and the U.N. panel have won popularity over the last decade by beginning to hack away at corruption long endemic in Guatemala, including forcing Otto Perez Molina from the presidency in 2015.

“An attack upon them is an attack upon everyone in Guatemala who is fighting for a better country,” said Mike Allison, a political science professor at the University of Scranton.

Though some people worried Sunday about the potential for the government to declare a state of emergency and try to use security forces to clamp down, both Allison and Burt predicted Morales won’t be able to hold onto power given the new political climate in Guatemala. “It’s going to be a matter of days, maybe even hours,” Burt said. “His presidency in my mind is over.”

Two years ago, corruption allegations against Perez Molina and his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, were mounting and public protests went on for months. Eventually both resigned quietly and they remain in jail awaiting trial.

Perez Molina’s resignation was a crowning achievement for the commission, which has become a powerful voice against corruption in the public square and gained widespread support.

Elizabeth Oglesby, a professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona, said Morales and his advisers “miscalculated about the broader political moment.”

She said perhaps they thought that with the political upheaval in the United States there would be little attention paid to Guatemala.

Instead, the U.S. and other donor countries that support the commission issued a joint statement within hours voicing their support for Velasquez. The U.S. State Department then issued a separate statement saying “it remains crucial that (the commission) be permitted to work free from interference by the Guatemalan government.”

Associated Press writer Sonia Perez D. reported this story in Guatemala City and AP writer Christopher Sherman reported from Mexico City.</s>Guatemala faced a fresh political crisis Sunday as President Jimmy Morales tried to expel a UN official investigating him for suspected corruption, but was overruled by the courts.

The row comes two years since another graft affair that toppled a former president in the Central American country of 15 million people.

And it sparked international criticism, from the United States and several European countries.

Morales on Sunday turned against UN anti-corruption official Ivan Velasquez as his investigations threatened to engulf Morales in scandal too.

Morales said he ordered Velasquez, a Colombian national, to be expelled from the country "in the interests of the Guatemalan people, for the strengthening of the rule of law and our institutions," in a video published online.

Later in the day, the Constitutional Court temporarily suspended Morales's order, its chairman Francisco Mata told reporters.

That put Morales on the spot as protests broke out against the president and in favor of Velasquez.

Health Minister Lucrecia Hernandez resigned in protest over Morales's move, accusing him of supporting "impunity."

Her three vice-ministers plus competition commissioner Enrique Godoy followed her example in resigning.

An army spokesman said the force remained loyal to Morales.

Velasquez is the head of the UN International Committee Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).

Morales cited articles of the constitution and international conventions, implying that Velasquez had interfered in Guatemala's internal affairs.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was "shocked" by Morales's move and "has repeatedly reiterated his full confidence in Commissioner Velasquez," Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

"Mr. Velasquez has worked tirelessly to promote a culture that upholds the rule of law and rejects corruption."

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Washington was "deeply concerned" and said the CICIG had to be "permitted to work free from interference by the Guatemalan government.

The US also joined Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland in condemning the move, in a joint statement issued by their embassies in Guatemala City.

The commission helped prosecutors investigate the corruption scandal that toppled president Otto Perez in 2015.

Morales, a former television comedian, won the subsequent elections and took over as president the following year.

Now investigators say Morales is suspected of failing to declare electoral campaign funds. They estimate the value of the suspect transactions at about $1.0 million.

On Friday, Velasquez and Guatemalan prosecutors applied to strip Morales of his immunity so he can be probed over the payments linked to his party, the National Convergence Front.

That same day, Morales met with Guterres.

Morales also said he was firing his foreign minister Carlos Raul Morales.

The minister was involved in Friday's meeting with the UN chief and denied having demanded Velasquez's removal.

Reports of plans to expel Velasquez had already sparked angry protests outside the presidential palace on Saturday.

That raised the prospect of a fresh wave of unrest like the one that broke out against Perez in 2015.

Protests against Velasquez's removal erupted again Sunday at his commission's headquarters and the country's constitutional court, with demonstrators banging drums and blowing whistles.

"Velasquez is a man who came to make all those rotten corrupt people tremble," said Javier Coyoy, 42, a shopkeeper in the capital.

But his perceived lack of action since taking office last year has driven down his popularity.

Activist Jorge Santos, head of the UDEFEGUA human rights group, warned the expulsion of Velasquez could spark a new crisis.

"We are faced with a government that has lost its legitimacy almost immediately," he told AFP.

"Now we are starting to see a new day" of protests like those of 2015, he said.</s>GUATEMALA CITY — The Latest on the effort by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales to expel the head of a U.N. anti-corruption agency (all times local):

Guatemala's chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana says she's giving unconditional support to the head of a U.N. anti-corruption commission who the president has ordered to leave the country.

Adana issued a statement late Sunday saying the Court's order suspending the president's expulsion order for Ivan Velasquez must be obeyed. She's worked closely with Velasquez.

President Jimmy Morales plunged the country into a crisis Sunday by standing firm on his order to remove Velasquez even after the court suspended the order.

Now Guatemalans will watch the courts closely to see what the definitive ruling is on Velasquez and whether Morales' immunity will be lifted as Aldana and Velasquez requested on Friday.</s>Demonstrators protest against Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales in front of the National Palace in Guatemala City, Guatemala, August 27, 2017. REUTERS/Fabricio Alonzo

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales on Sunday appeared to defy a court ruling that he not expel the head of an influential U.N. anti-graft unit investigating his campaign financing, deepening an institutional crisis in the Central American nation.

Earlier on Sunday, the president said Ivan Velasquez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, must leave the country immediately. Hours later, the nation's top court suspended the decision.

In a nearly four-minute address in which he was flanked by Guatemalan flags, Morales accused Velasquez of exceeding his mandate. He said the decision to expel him was a matter of foreign policy and therefore the responsibility of the executive, not the courts.

In the charged atmosphere, hundreds of Guatemalans took to the streets, mostly to defend Velasquez outside his offices and in the center of Guatemala City, although some groups came out in support of the president and against foreign interference.

Velasquez, a veteran prosecutor who previously investigated drug cartels and paramilitary groups in his home country, Colombia, remained in his office on Sunday afternoon, where he was meeting with supportive foreign ambassadors.

The U.S. State Department said it was "deeply concerned" about the move against the anti-corruption unit, echoing criticism by the United Nations, Europe and Canada. Several senior members of Morales' government resigned over the issue.

In its ruling, the country's highest civil court said the foreign, defense and interior ministers should not participate in removing Velasquez from the country. Two constitutional experts consulted by Reuters said the president would be committing a crime if he does not obey the court.

With powers to prepare crime and corruption cases, CICIG was instrumental in removing Guatemala's former president, Otto Perez Molina, from office in 2015 after identifying him as a key player in an alleged multimillion-dollar corruption racket.

Morales, a former comedian, came to power in 2016, winning the election on an anti-corruption ticket.

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. CICIG is investigating some $800,000 in allegedly unexplained contributions to Morales' campaign. Morales has denied any wrongdoing.

CICIG has been a thorn in the president's side since it started a graft probe focused on his elder brother and one of his sons.

Many politicians in Guatemala consider the foreign-led body, which is unusual among U.N. bodies for its powers to bring cases to prosecutors, to be a violation of national sovereignty. Anti-corruption activists credit it with cleaning up government.

It is responsible for the arrests of at least 15 current and former members of Congress on corruption charges.

Guatemala's foreign minister, deputy foreign minister, health minister and three deputy health ministers all left the government earlier in the day, according to a spokesman and a resignation letter. The circumstances of the foreign minister's departure were not immediately clear, but he said on Friday he would resign if Velasquez were forced out.

"You've taken a position in favor of impunity and the corrupt sectors of the country, contradicting all of the statements you once made about justice and transparency,"

Health Minister Lucrecia Hernandez wrote in the letter, also signed by three vice ministers who resigned with her.

Guatemala has struggled to thwart corruption and organized crime since it ended 36 years of civil war in 1996, and memories have not faded of ruptures with democracy under a military government in the 1980s.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a statement he was "shocked" by Morales' move, and called on Guatemalan authorities to treat Velasquez with respect. In a joint statement issued by the U.S. Embassy, a group of nine Western countries and the European Union strongly backed Velasquez and criticized Morales' move to oust him.

Representative Eliot Engel of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said he was "extremely disappointed" by Morales' decision 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.</s>GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales on Monday showed signs of wavering on his decision to expel the head of a United Nations-backed anti-graft unit, who is investigating the leader's campaign financing.

Morales on Sunday declared Ivan Velasquez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), "persona non grata" and ordered him to leave the Central American country immediately. Hours later, the nation's top court suspended the decision.

After two days of protests in the capital and criticism from the United States and European Union, there were signs Morales could backtrack on his initial insistence that he had the authority to expel Velasquez.

Government spokesperson Heinz Heimann said on Monday Morales was studying the court decision to suspend his order to force out Velasquez, saying the government would respect the law.

"The resolution is being legally analyzed, respecting the rule of law, the laws and separation of powers," said Heimann, who also "completely" ruled out rumors the government could declare a state of emergency due to the protests.

It is not yet clear if Morales will challenge the court, a move that could put him in contempt and at risk of losing his job, according to constitutional experts consulted by Reuters.

"Bring Jimmy Morales to justice!," hundreds of students chanted in unison as they marched towards the presidential palace in downtown Guatemala City on Monday.

Velasquez, who previously investigated drug cartels and paramilitary groups in his homeland Colombia, was declared "persona non grata" days after the CICIG said Morales should be investigated over alleged illicit funding in his election run.

With powers to prepare crime and corruption cases, the CICIG was in 2015 instrumental in removing from office former Guatemalan president Otto Perez after identifying him as a key player in an alleged multi-million-dollar corruption racket.

The CICIG has been strongly backed by western powers.

"We expect the Guatemalan government to allow CICIG to do its critical work without interference," said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.

The European Union said the decision to declare Velasquez persona non grata put at great risk the work initiated by the CICIG on strengthening the rule of law in Guatemala.

Morales, a former comedian, won election in late 2015 after riding a wave of public discontent over the corruption scandals that brought down his predecessor Perez. (Reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel and Sofia Menchu; Additional reporting by Luis Echeverria; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Andrew Hay)
President of Guatemala Jimmy Morales announced Sunday he is expelling the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a U.N. anti-corruption commission that is investigating the president's campaign financing.