Former president of Guatemala Alvaro Colom dies at 71

Former Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom has died aged 71 (Richard Drew/AP)

Former Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom, who governed from 2008 to 2012 and supported a United Nations anti-corruption mission that later investigated him, died on Monday, politicians from his party have announced. He was 71.

Orlando Blanco, leader of the centre-left National Unity of Hope Party in Congress, said: “I deeply lament the death of ex-president Colom, a man of profound democratic convictions and great social sensibility.”