No trial for Twitter 'panic' man

An appeals court in Guatemala City has ruled there is not enough evidence to try a man accused of using micro-blog Twitter to cause a financial panic.

Jean Anleu was charged in May after sending a 96-character "tweet" urging people to pull their money from Guatemala's rural development bank.

The bank's management has been challenged in a political scandal.

But the appeals court has ordered the case judge to rule "the case lacks merit", Associated Press has reported.

"A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We still have to see what the prosecution does," Mr Anleu told the news agency.

Using the alias "jeanfer", he had urged depositors to pull their money from the bank and had said that "first concrete action should be, take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt".

Prosecutor Genaro Pacheco had said the tweet illegally undermined public trust in Guatemala's banking system.

Mr Anleu now hopes to recover $6,200 in bail money, half of which was donated by sympathetic tweeters. He also spent another $7,000 on legal fees.

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