Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano

... the only reality that counts is this: if you saw and heard this message, it is because I was killed by Álvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom, with the help of Gustavo Alejos. Guatemalans, the time has come. Please — it is time. Good afternoon.

In July, 2013, one of these men, Mario Luis Paz Mejia, who was eventually convicted in the killing of Marjorie and Khalil Musa, once again changed his testimony in the Rosenberg case, absolving the Valdés Paiz brothers from involvement in Rosenberg's murder. He declared: "The Paiz brothers don't have anything to do with this. I never saw them."

Lea Marie de León was killed on one of the principal boulevards of Guatemala City during the day of February 2013. She accused Alvaro Colom of having been involved in Rodrigo Rosenberg's murder. In March, 2011, de León was accused of libel by the CICIG while she was defending people who questioned the CICIG's honorability in the Rosenberg case.

On the 10 August 2011, his son, Eduardo Rosenberg Paiz, made the following comment: "We don't care about the final conclusions that a failed system of justice makes about his death," denying that his father's purpose had been to overthrow a particular government, but to "turn our Republic into a State of Rule of Law, where governors and governed obey the law and where no crime can remain unpunished."

In January 2010, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a commission in charge of recommending governmental change backed by the UN and the Guatemalan government, announced the results of its own investigation, concluding that Rosenberg had arranged his own death. It concluded that he asked two cousins of his ex-wife to arrange the assassination of a man he claimed was blackmailing him. However, the target was, according to the CICIG, himself. The cousins are said to have contracted eleven guns-for-hire, most of whom were former or current police officers and one ex-military. Rosenberg was said to have used an anonymous cell phone to call his personal cell phone number, creating the appearance of death threats and to call the hit men on the morning of his death. Investigators traced the phone to his driver from a sales tax receipt.

In light of the discovery, Vice-President Rafael Espada (who Rosenberg had called on to replace President Colom) denied having any contact with Rosenberg or anyone close to him before the murder. More recent information about the Musas' murder indicated that Khalil Musa had finally declined the board of directors nomination, and that a more likely suspect for his murder than government officials was "a criminal network" from whom he had purchased "contraband for his textile factory". Several of the people arrested for the killing of Rodrigo Rosenberg were also arrested on 22 September 2010 for participating in the murder of the Musas, including one of the men who was freed for testifying against the Valdés brothers, Mario Paz Mejía. Paz Mejía's brother Wilfredo Antonio Paz Mejía was also implicated in their murder.

In September, 2010, María Encarnación Mejia, interim attorney general for the CICIG, declared that seven of the eleven people who participated in the murder of Marjorie and Khalil Musa were involved in the killing of Rodrigo Rosenberg.

Francisco Capuano, another of the defense lawyers, asked the witness who else had pressured him to testify against the Valdés Paiz brothers in 2010. Instead of answering, he looked around and pointed to Luis Orozco, an official of the CICIG, the United Nations International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala.

Rosenberg was shot dead on May 10, 2009, while cycling in Guatemala City. He was approached by an assassin who came down a grass bank and shot him in the back. The killer ran around Rosenberg's left side and fired another bullet down his cheek, which exited from his neck, and another, which did not exit, into his neck. The killer then knelt on his right side and placed the gun under Rosenberg's jaw, firing another bullet that tore through Rosenberg's eye and went out his left temple. Finally, the murderer moved the gun to Rosenberg's forehead as it faced away from him and fired a final shot, which lodged in his brain.

Rosenberg claimed his death would be due to his involvement with two clients: Khalil Musa, a prominent businessman, and Musa's daughter, Marjorie, who were both assassinated in April 2009. Khalil Musa had been nominated by members of President Colom's government to serve on the board of Guatemala's Banrural (Rural Development) bank.

On May 13, 2009, the United States Ambassador to Guatemala, Stephen G. McFarland, confirmed that FBI personnel had arrived in Guatemala to aid in the investigation.

At least one blogger, Jean Anleu Fernández, was arrested on charges of "inciting financial panic" after he urged readers to withdraw deposits from Banrural. Anleu had suggested on the social messaging network Twitter that all account holders should withdraw their funds from Banrural. He was placed under house arrest on May 14, 2009. Anleu's short message, "Primera accion real 'sacar el pisto de Banrural' quebrar al banco de los corruptos," resulted in a judge ordering his detention and suggesting a fine of up to GTQ50,000. Attempts to censor Anleu's message backfired, because of internet phenomenon called the Streisand effect. A Guatemalan appeals court ruled on 10 July 2009 that the case lacked merit. Some US$7,000 was spent on Anleu's legal fees, half contributed by Twitter users by PayPal. Vice president Espada filed a criminal complaint against journalist, Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán. In August, 2010, the Constitutional Court rejected the vice president's complaint on the grounds that the columnist was "protected by the right to freedom of thought".

By September 12, 2009, Guatemalan police arrested a total of nine men, among them two active policemen, two former policemen and an ex-soldier and three other gang members, who were charged with Rosenberg's killing.

Mario Paz Mejía, a policeman with connections in high places in the Guatemalan Government, was one of the people captured and originally accused of the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg in October 2009, six months after the murder. Paz Mejía was eventually freed for collaborating with the authorities.

In 1987 Rosenberg co-founded Rosenberg-Marzano, Marroquin-Pemueller & Asociados, S.C., a law firm. He specialized in Business/Commercial, Corporate, International, Trademark, Constitutional, Tax, and Procedural Law. He was also on the legal staff of Rodríguez Mahuad & Asociados, another law firm, and was appointed Vice-Dean of the Law School at Rafael Landívar University. He also served as president of the Board of Directors of CENAC Foundation (Center for Arbitration and Mediation).

Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano (November 28, 1960 – May 10, 2009) was a Guatemalan attorney. Before his death, Rosenberg recorded a video message saying if he were murdered, Álvaro Colom Caballeros, President of Guatemala, Gustavo Alejos, Sandra Torres de Colom, and Gregorio Valdés would have been directly responsible. His subsequent killing caused a national uproar. After an investigation by a United Nations commission, officials declared that Rosenberg had arranged his own death and had contacted cousins of his former wife, Francisco José Ramón Valdés Paiz and José Estuardo Valdés Paiz, to hire a hitman.

"On 8 September 2009, the Fiscalía listened to a conversation in which Santos Divas was warned by another member of the band that López had made a document telling about the Rosenberg crime and left it with a general in the Army who would make it public if anything happened to him." Which Lopez is not specified in the Prensa Libre article titled: Agendas Disclose Contact Between Killers and Police. (Agendas delatan contacto de sicarios con policías. 24/05/10.) Willian [sic] Gilberto Santos Divas was in the car with Mario Paz Mejía during the operation.