GUATEMALA CITY -- Four months after a murdered lawyer sent Guatemala into political crisis with a posthumously released video accusing the president and first lady of ordering his death, 10 men are behind bars after being accused of the killing.

Authorities arrested a band of suspected hitmen who they say carried out orders from the crime's masterminds, who have yet to be identified. The lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg, was shot to death while riding his bike in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood on Mother's Day. Days earlier, he recorded a video that began ``if you're watching this, it's because I was killed by the president.''

The Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a United Nations-backed investigatory body (known by its Spanish acronym CICIG), announced the arrests on Sept. 11 -- exactly four months after the murder. President Alvaro Colom, who has denied involvement in the crime, declared, ``truth and justice will prevail.''

`NO SURPRISE'

But instead of marking the announcement as a significant step in solving a crime that paralyzed the country for weeks, analysts say the arrests serve as a reminder that organized crime and the police and military remain bedfellows in Guatemala.

Six of the 10 suspects were current or former police officers, including the alleged ringleader, William Gilberto Santos Divas, a former official in the National Civil Police known as ``El Comisario.'' Another, Edwin Idelmo Lopez, was a military specialist until 2005, according to authorities.

``The fact that the former members of the military and police are accused of being involved is no surprise whatsoever. It only confirms what all Guatemalans know: Police and military in Guatemala are still deeply involved with organized crime,'' said Anita Isaacs, of Haverford College in Pennsylvania, who researches democracy in Guatemala.

Despite owning one of the highest murder rates in the Americas, Guatemala brought less than 2 percent of murders to justice last year, according to the United Nations, leaving criminal bands with little fear of the authorities.

`IRREFUTABLE'

Rosenberg's alleged shooters were operating under that same sense of impunity. But it might have been their downfall.

``We don't have a single witness, but we do have irrefutable scientific evidence,'' said Carlos Castresana, the Spanish judge who heads up CICIG, at a news conference announcing the arrests.

Investigators said the hitmen left a trail of evidence: A tricked-out Mazda caught by security cameras leaving the scene of the crime belonged to Gilberto, the group's leader. Records of Gilberto's cellphone calls led authorities to the other suspects. And the day of the murder, the alleged shooters exchanged some 12,000 cellphone calls, investigators said.

``To still have the car you used during the crime in possession -- and to make 12,000 phone calls? How brazen can it be? They seemed to think that there was no way they were going to get caught,'' Isaacs said. ``If there was one thing that was a surprise about these arrests, it was the degree of brazenness with which this particular crime syndicate was operating.''

Rosenberg's murder recalled tactics state forces used during Guatemala's brutal civil war. The military and police and paramilitary were responsible for more than 90 percent of the 200,000 murders and disappearances during the conflict, according to a Catholic Church truth commission report. Two days after presenting the report in 1998, Bishop Juan Gerardi was bludgeoned to death in his parish's garage. Three army officers were convicted of the killing.

The signing of the peace accords that ended the war in 1996 made systemic changes to the police and military in an effort to root out their influence. But instead of losing their power, the groups morphed.

Many opened private security firms. Guatemala's 150,000 private security forces -- body guards and ubiquitous security guards posted in front of stores with pump-action shotguns -- outnumber the national police sevenfold.

``It's the same actors. Their power has never passed. And they have tentacles throughout government,'' said Karla Campos of the Grupo Apoyo Mutuo, a Guatemalan human-rights organization.

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