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Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face money-laundering charges, just days after former dictator Efrain Rios Montt's genocide conviction was overturned, Reuters reported. 

A U.S. grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered $70 million through U.S. banks.

A Guatemalan court cleared Portillo of local embezzlement charges in May 2011, but the country's Supreme Court later endorsed an extradition request by the United States that Portillo face money-laundering charges.

"This decision is an important affirmation of the rule of law and due process in Guatemala," the U.S. embassy said after Portillo was flown out of the country.

Local authorities picked Portillo up from a military hospital where he was receiving treatment for liver problems. He was transferred to the hospital in April from a jail where he had been held pending a decision on the extradition.

Portillo's lawyers said police put the former president on a plane headed for New York.

"They showed up at the hospital, said, 'Get dressed, put on this shirt and we are taking you to the air force base,'" attorney Mauricio Berreondo told reporters just before the flight took off.

"See you soon Guatemala, this is a kidnapping," local media quoted Portillo as saying at the airport.