Guatemala's Portillo extradited to United States

He was handed over to U.S. agents at a military airfield and then boarded a government aircraft to be taken to New York.

The extradition of Portillo, who led one of the most corrupt administrations in the history of Guatemala, was authorized in November 2011.

Before his extradition, Portillo complained that he was being "kidnapped" and blamed the government for whatever might happen to him.

"It's an abuse, a kidnapping, it's an injustice and an abuse of power. I'm sick, I have fluid in one lung and cardiac arrythmia, and they're taking me anyway," the former president told a capital radio station.

Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla told reporters that the extradition procedure "was being carried out according to the law and previously established security regulations."

Portillo is accused by U.S. federal prosecutors of using New York banks to launder some $70 million in stolen public funds.

On May 15, the Guatemala Supreme Court rejected Portillo's latest appeal as "inadmissable."

Portillo always argued that handing him over to the United States would be illegal, since that country demanded his extradition for the same crime for which he had already been tried and acquitted by a Guatemalan court.