The continuing story of Ricardo Martinelli, his family and trials

[Moderator_03]

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Ricardo Martinelli gets broadside from columnist

Posted 30/01/2022

Monica Palm whose daily column in La Prensa uses former president Ricardo Martinelli as a frequent  target is on vacation, but before lowering her sights she aimed some withering grapeshot in his direction.

“As many will remember, in the Wikileaks cables, former ambassador Bárbara Stephenson harshly questioned Ricardo Martinelli, warning that “his tendency to harass and blackmail may have led him to stardom in the world of supermarkets, but it is hardly like a statesman. ” and that he “made no distinction between legitimate targets and political enemies.” She said Martinelli asked for help conducting wiretaps and threatened to expel the DEA if they didn't comply. That was 11 years ago and now you will be able to find out if time proved Stephenson, who has already retired from the diplomatic service and is vice chancellor for global affairs at the University of North Carolina, right. The former president, on the other hand, could not even visit that campus, even if he wanted to.”

MARTINELLI makes no secret of his scant affection for any authority other than his own. That, which in itself is bad, gets worse when it goes from words to deeds. For example, he has sued Tania Sterling the anti-corruption prosecutor in the Odebrecht case,  several times. In one of the complaints, he claims $10 million for alleged "moral, psychological, commercial, business, social, family and political damage." Yes… “family injury”, you did not read wrong.

He demanded $20 million from Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado, because the Foreign Ministry sent the request for his extradition to the United States, in 2016. He also sued Harry Díaz and Jerónimo Mejía, prosecutor and guarantee judge, in the puncture case, and Kenya Porcell, who had to post a bond of $150,000 to stop the seizure of her assets. More recently, she denounced María Eugenia López Arias, President of the Court, because -according to him- she altered the hearing schedule so that the puncture trial would be held in 2021.

Of course, he had to add Baloisa Marquínez, the judge in the Odebrecht and New Business cases, to that list. He has even said that it is “worse than Covid-19”. But that's not the most worrying thing.

LAST Tuesday, two days before the New Business preliminary hearing, an Instagram account called @ricardomartinelli_politica published an (alleged) photo of Marquínez with the following text: “They tell me this is the inquisitorial judge who says no to everything. For her, there is no law, Constitution, codes, or international treaties. Her mission is to condemn and destroy the country. Keep it up @nitocortizo and @gabycarrizo, they're doing well. They tell me her husband has 'transportation' and that beauties will come out there... they say her name is Baloisa Martínez (sic) from Las Lajas de Chiriquí. Matito the deceased, before he died, left behind many things that will serve and are frightening”.

“So what?”  writes Palm. “Well, according to article 388 of the Penal Code, any mortal who threatens, intimidates, hinders or impedes the performance of official duties by an official of the Judicial Branch or the Public Prosecutor's Office could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in prison. Nothing that a personal army of lawyers, a medical disability book, and the property title of a political party cannot solve. That way no one who tries to blackmail an authority will worry if they do it openly and in writing.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/ricardo-martinelli-gets-broadside-from-columnist

[Moderator_03]

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Judge requests lifting of Martinelli protection

Posted 03/02/2022

Baloisa Marquínez, third judge liquidating criminal cases, has requested the lifting of the criminal electoral jurisdiction of former president Ricardo Martinelli, who is being prosecuted for alleged money laundering through the company New Business, for the purchase of the company Editora Panamá América (Epasa).

The judge's request was filed on Wednesday, February 2. Now, according to the changes made to the Electoral Code in 2021, this petition must be reviewed by an Electoral Administrative Court and, if there is an appeal, it passes to the full TE.

During the hearing on January 27, Martinelli's lawyers invoked legal armor as a result of an internal electoral tournament of the Realizing Goals (RM) party. The next day they presented the certification of the TE and the Third Criminal Court Liquidator suspended the process.

A new hearing date was established for May 19-23 and alternate date for July 4-6.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/judge-requests-lifting-of-martinelli-protection

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Israel promises investigation of Pegasus scandal

Posted 07/02/2022

The Israeli government promises to act on the scandal of police espionage with Pegasus.

Pegasus-infected smartphones allow the attacker to read the victim's messages, look at their photos, track their location, and even turn on their camera without them knowing.

It is the same program acquired by former president Ricardo Martinelli to spy on 150 opposition politicians, lawyers, and journalists. Martinelli was twice acquitted of illegal wiretapping and the $13 million equipment has gone missing since he left office.

The Israeli government assured on Monday that "it will not leave unanswered" and will act in the face of the scandal of police espionage of politicians, journalists, and businessmen through the Pegasus computer program, the subject of new revelations.

According to the Calcalist economic newspaper on Monday, the Israeli police hacked the phones of public figures, journalists, and members of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's entourage on a large scale thanks to the Pegasus program, allegations described as "very serious" by the current head of government. Naftali Bennet.

After the first Calcalist revelations, which prompted the justice to open an investigation on January 20, the police admitted last week to having used computer espionage technologies "without a mandate", although without citing the Pegasus program of the Israeli company NSO.

This Monday the Calcalist newspaper affirms that it was common to use the Pegasus program to obtain information and that it was used without judicial authorization against Avner Netanyahu, one of the former prime minister's sons, his advisers, journalists, and mayors.

In a statement Monday, Prime Minister Bennet promised the government "will not leave unanswered" this matter. “What is alleged to have happened here is very serious,” says Bennet.

The Israeli prime minister considers, however, that the Pegasus program is an "important tool in the fight against terrorism" but that "it cannot be used as electronic espionage against the Israeli public or against those responsible" political or economic.

For that reason, "we must understand exactly what happened," continues the prime minister.

Pegasus is a surveillance program that can turn on a phone's camera or microphone to collect your information.

It sparked global controversy last year following revelations that it was used to spy on journalists and dissidents in countries including Mexico, Hungary, Poland, and Saudi Arabia.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/israel-promises-investigation-of-pegasus-scandal

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Martinelli seeks to remove judge from New Business trial

Posted 17/02/2022

The New Business case faces a new obstacle. Former President Ricardo Martinelli challenged Judge Baloisa Marquínez, with the purpose of removing her from the case reports La Prensa.

The Judge had asked the Electoral Court to lift the jurisdiction which Martinelli Martinelli used as a cover leading to the postponement of the trial until May.

The defense of Martinelli added new resources in the process that is being followed for the alleged commission of money laundering in the New Business case. This time it is a recusal against the third judge liquidator of criminal cases, Baloisa Marquínez, in order to separate her from the case.

The appeal is in the hands of Agueda Rentería, the first judge to liquidate criminal cases, who must analyze the legal action and notify Marquínez so that she can present her arguments.

In an edict posted at the headquarters of the First Criminal Court, Rentería informs that it will suspend the resolution of the appeal presented by Martinelli's defense until the request to lift the electoral jurisdiction is made by Judge Marquínez to the Court is resolved.

But this is not the only resource that the former president's lawyers have filed in recent days to knock down the case. In the Public Ministry they also filed a complaint against Marquínez for abuse of authority and excess of functions, for allegedly prosecuting Martinelli when, according to the complaint, he was protected by the principle of specialty.

Roniel Ortiz, from Martinelli's team of lawyers, assured that Judge Marquínez never carried out a procedure to request the exception to the principle of specialty of his client, therefore, he says that everything that has been done in this case is null. Ortiz explained that the judge had to submit the request for exception of the principle of specialty to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from there to the US judge Edwin Torres, who ordered the extradition of Martinelli to Panama in 2018 in order to establish whether or not said request proceeds.

US Embassy
However, the US embassy in Panama has repeatedly disclosed the position of the State Department in this case. The last time it was pronounced was on December 23. "The position of the State Department has not changed: Panama is free to take Mr. Martinelli to trial without obtaining an exception from the United States (US) to the specialty rule," the embassy assured that day.

Before the preliminary hearing for Martinelli and 33 others investigated in the New Business case was suspended on January 28, Judge Marquínez had rejected several incidents of annulment presented by the former president's defense.

Among them, one for maintaining alleged immunity because when the investigation began in 2017, he was a deputy of the Central American Parliament. And the other is related to the alleged violation of the specialty principle.

But at the hearing, Judge Marquínez rejected both allegations. Regarding the principle of specialty, she argued that this situation had already been discussed by her office, and added that the Second Superior Court of Justice had even confirmed her decision to reject it.

Later, Martinelli's defense argued that his client had criminal electoral jurisdiction as a result of internal elections of Realizing Metas (RM), the political party he created and of which he serves as president. Marquínez decided to suspend the hearing until May 19 and asked the Electoral Tribunal (TE) to lift his jurisdiction.

TE sources reported that on Wednesday officials from the Electoral Administrative Court placed an edict on the door of the RM party headquarters to notify it of the impeachment process. Now their lawyers must present the corresponding defenses.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/martinelli-seeks-to-remove-judge-from-new-business-trial

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Electoral Tribunal removes Martinelli shield

Posted 24/02/2022

The Second Administrative Court of the Electoral Tribunal decided Thursday, February 24, to lift the electoral criminal jurisdiction of former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli.

The request was made on February 2 by the Third Criminal Court Liquidator, where the New Business Case is being handled. Martinelli’s defense in yet another  stalling move, announced that it will appeal the measure.

The hearing of the New Business Case was suspended on January 28 when the former president presented a certification from the Electoral Tribunal confirming that he enjoyed electoral criminal jurisdiction.

Martinelli's lawyers will have two business days to present the appeal before the Electoral Court.

The plenary session of the court will decide whether or not to uphold the decision of the Second Administrative Court.

The New Business Case

The case involves the acquisition of a media company that publishes Panama America and La Critica with funds allegedly diverted from Government projects by members of Martinelli’s inner circle.
Within the investigations of the case, the Public Ministry found bank information that details the use of an offshore bank account to receive and group money, whose origin was related to activities related to crimes against the Public Administration. "In order to hide the alleged illicit origin of the money, a group of companies was acquired, including the media," the ministry said. And he adds: "In this financial operation, it was possible to identify money from the State that was entered, in an unusual way, into the financial system, to later distribute it among other natural and legal persons that were finally grouped together to integrate the money from the purchase of those companies. "

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/electoral-tribunal-removes-martinelli-shield

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Way cleared for two Martinelli laundering trials

Posted 25/02/2022

The cases of New Business and Odebrecht followed by former president Ricardo Martinelli bear no relation to the electoral process of the Realizing Goals (RM) party ruled the second electoral administrative judge, Edmara Lilibeth Jaén when lifting Martinelli's electoral criminal jurisdiction.

Jaén agreed to the request submitted by the third criminal judge, Baloisa Marquínez.

Marquínez made her requests after on January 28, at the beginning of the preliminary hearing in the New Business case, Martinelli's defense argued that his client enjoyed criminal jurisdiction, due to internal elections in RM.

The Second Administrative Electoral Court agreed to the request to lift the electoral criminal jurisdiction of the former President (2009-2014) so that he responds to the accusation of alleged money laundering in the cases of New Business and Odebrecht.

In the resolution, dated February 23, Jaén specified that no elements have been found that prevent her from removing the shield since the Odebrecht processes, opened in September 2015, and New Business, started in February 2017, have not been instructed or used to hinder the electoral contest that is currently taking place within the Realizing Goals Party (RM), of which Martinelli is president.

Another of the arguments used by Judge Jaén is the fact that a relationship cannot be attributed between the electoral process to choose the secretariats of Youth and Women of RM, with the facts contained in the files of New Business and Odebecht, since they are not aimed at interfering in the electoral contest of the party.

The judge does not raise it, but the elections arose in the middle of the process, according to documentation that rests in the Electoral Tribunal (TE). The RM board of directors, chaired by Martinelli, approved the election schedule on January 5, 2022, when it was already known that the alternate date for the hearing of the New Business case would be from January 27 to 31, 2022.

To support his arguments, Jaén cites a ruling of the TE of January 24, 2018, in which it is established that "the lifting of the jurisdiction will be viable when the summaries that are instructed do not constitute a judicial mechanism to persecute the citizen by reason of their participation in the electoral process.

Regarding the argument of Martinelli's lawyers in the sense that the former president would be protected by the principle of specialty contained in the extradition treaty between the United States and Panama, Jaén said that she cannot rule on something that is beyond her competence.

Roniel Ortiz, from Martinelli's legal team, announced an appeal against Judge Jaén's decision, which must be resolved by the full Court.

Ortiz alleged that Jaén did not take into consideration that Judge Marquínez had violated due process by not suspending the preliminary hearing on January 28, after being notified of her client's appraisal.

According to him, Marquínez exceeded her duties by combining (in a single request) the lifting of Martinelli's jurisdiction at Odebrecht and New Business

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/way-cleared-for-two-martinelli-laundering-trials

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Colombian prosecutor seeks jail for Panama trip by Martinelli lawyer

Martinelli and Cadena

Posted 08/03/2022

The Colombian Attorney General's Office requested before a judge this Tuesday, March 8, that criminal lawyer Diego Cadena be sent to prison after he traveled to Panama despite the fact that a home security measure had been imposed on him.

On February 15, Cadena, who is being prosecuted for alleged crimes of procedural fraud and witness bribery, traveled to Panama City.

International media have published that one of the proofs of Cadena's contempt is a photograph in which he is seen sitting in a restaurant in a hotel in Panama.

Cadena was a lawyer for former President Ricardo Martinelli, whom he represented in a case in which the Spanish newspaper El Mundo was sued, for a story published in October 2019, referring to the case followed by managers of the construction company Fomento de Construcciones and Contratas (FCC)  for payments of bribes in Panama.

According to the newspaper El Tiempo, Cadena was in Panama for a few days, despite the fact that in December 2021 a judge had revoked his freedom and ordered his house arrest.

Cadena was also a lawyer for former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe.

According to Infobae, the prosecutor Daniel Hernández pointed out that, “for having defrauded the good faith of Colombian justice by having traveled to Panama during the month of February, despite the fact that since 2020 he had a house arrest measure, it is necessary that Cadena be sent to prison.”

During his statement, Hernández said that there are Colombian Migration records, which show that Cadena left the country without the permission of a judge.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/colombian-prosecutor-seeks-jail-for-panama-trip-by-martinelli-lawyer

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Seven arrested in Spain for spying on Martinelli's girlfriend

Four civil guards are being investigated by Internal Affairs.

Posted 16/03/2022

Seven people, including four agents of the Spanish Civil Guard, were arrested last Monday for allegedly spying on the "girlfriend" of former President Ricardo Martinelli) in Mallorca, various Spanish media reported.

The Civil Guard agents were from the Balearic Islands and served in the Marivent Palace, the Son Sant Joan airport and the municipality of Calviä, among other sectors. This Wednesday, they have been brought to justice.

The name of Martinelli's alleged "girlfriend" has not been revealed, although she was the one who filed the complaint, once she realized that she was being watched by the agents, in July 2020. The woman is identified as a "businesswoman" who lives between Miami and Mallorca.

"This story seems to be taken from a movie script, but it is real," wrote the ABC newspaper, adding that the purpose was to inform Martinelli if his "girlfriend" was unfaithful to him. "They even set up fake security checkpoints to stop her in the vehicle and identify the people who were with her,"

The newspaper El País indicates,  that the former president appears as being investigated in the case, according to police sources.

In addition to the four civil guards, the media reports that, as part of the investigation, an alleged soldier and the owner and an employee of a security company are detained.

The case is being investigated by a team of Internal Affairs experts, who traveled to Mallorca this weekend to carry out the arrests that were carried out on Monday.

The media report many details of the follow-ups, the group's strategies, and how the former president would have participated in the acts reports La Prensa.

According to reports, the group would even have placed a geolocator in the vehicle that the woman was driving in Mallorca, in order to monitor her movements.

"The detained civil guards created a group on the WhatsApp instant messaging application called 'Operation Cockatoo' to coordinate during the surveillance," El País said, citing the documentation of this case. Martinelli would have participated in this WhatsApp group, with the pseudonym “Zeus".

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/seven-arrested-in-spain-for-spying-on-martinelli039s-girlfriend-1

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Martinelli facing girlfriend harassment investigation

11 suspects have been arrested and charged.

Posted 17/03/2022

Former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli is being investigated in Spain in a case of espionage and harassment of a woman for which eleven people were arrested, four of them policemen, on the island of Mallorca (Balearic Islands), official sources informed the AFP Newsagency on Thursday.

According to  Spanish media, the victim is a woman with whom Martinelli had an extra-marital relationship and whom he commissioned agents to spy on when she was on vacation on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca in July 2020.

"In total, 11 people were arrested, four of them from the Civil Guard, for being part of a criminal group and harassing a woman", whose identity was not revealed nor was her relationship with Martinelli, a spokesman for the told AFP in Palma, capital of Mallorca.

These people, arrested between Monday and Tuesday of this week, acted "at the request of a person from Panama," said the spokesman, without further details.

According to legal sources confirmed to AFP, former President Martinelli – who is already being tried in Spain for a case of alleged corruption – is being investigated for this case.

The Spanish press, citing sources from the investigation, affirms that it was Martinelli who commissioned the shadowing of the woman.

Group Cougar
The detainees, who called themselves "Group Cougar", watched and followed the woman in Palma and on the beaches she visited, and even spied on her from jet skis when she was on a boat, according to the newspaper El Mundo.

The woman found out and reported the incident to the police.

Two of the detainees, one of them a civil guard, were placed in preventive detention and the others were released with precautionary measures, such as the withdrawal of their passport, reported to the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands .

Martinelli, Panamanian president between 2009 and 2014, is being tried in Spain for allegedly receiving bribes from the Spanish construction company FCC in exchange for contracts for public works during his government.

Testifying by videoconference in December before the Audiencia Nacional, a high jurisdiction in Madrid, the 70-year-old former president denied accusations of corruption and money laundering.

Martinelli, singled out in various investigations for corruption during his administration, was acquitted last November by a Panamanian court in a case in which he was accused of having illegally spied on opponents through the National Security Council (CSN) during his term. For these same acts, two former directors of the CSN were each sentenced to 60 months in prison.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/martinelli-facing-girlfriend-harassment-investigation

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Spanish media feast on Martinelli spying scandal

Indira Bruno was allegedly harassed by Martinelli.

Posted 20/03/2022

Readers of Spanish media were titillated on Sunday, with  WhatsApp conversations between former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli and a police team he had allegedly hired to monitor his girlfriend Indira Brunot.

The Sunday newspaper Última Hora disclosed text messages that the former president allegedly had with the people who set up the espionage and surveillance of Brunot.

“Did you see something strange between The Captain of the boat and Indi?, Hugs, kisses, touch, etc … ”, is one of the texts that the Spanish media disclosed.

There are at least 20 text messages that have come to light in the Spanish media, in which the instructions and information about the woman were supposedly given.

The media have reported that it was a surveillance and monitoring operation against the businesswoman, which began in July 2020.

“She is at home pissed off by the monitoring”, “She says I have spies”, are two other messages that appear in the texts published by Última Hora about the data that the former president allegedly gave to his contacts.

"Pluma 3 you are authorized to see if you enter the hornet's nest", "Caesar's wife not only has to be but to back off the attacks", "Be careful, he fucks her...".

 “Mario EG, owner of the escort company Group Kougar, seems to know Martinelli's girlfriend from when she guarded his exhibitions. Thus, July 2020 arrives and it is not surprising that the politician contacts them for a "special little job",wrote Ultima Hora.

The alleged instructions continue with another dozen messages: "The boy who is his type should proceed", "He is at home, he has just taken a bath", "Watch out, they already saw them", "I told you that a single man who lives in your house is with her all day”, …“I don't like love” … go to Martinelli and come back”.

AFP reports At least 11 people, including four agents of the Spanish Civil Guard, are being investigated for the espionage case.

On Thursday, March 17, the news agency reported that Martinelli is being investigated in Spain in a case of espionage and harassment of a woman.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/spanish-media-feast-on-martinelli-spying-scandal

[Moderator_03]

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The path to impunity

Posted 25/03/2022

Heriberto Araúz arrived at the Electoral Court in 2012, after sustaining the brazen thesis that a president could opt for re-election. He did not care that the Constitution expressly prohibited immediate re-election since his audience was reduced to one person: who just at that moment held the presidency and, at that time, was considering staying in it, Ricardo Martinelli.

The professor's outburst was his letter of introduction and he was rewarded with his designation as a member of the highest electoral body. It is tragic that the high price of his gratitude is paid by democracy and the rule of law. If Araúz cared little about the constitutional text before he won office, he will do it even less now that the benefactor of his accommodating criteria is in trouble. The text of his sentence is as devastating as the resonance he found in his partner, Judge Alfredo Juncá, that illustrious stranger whose merits to occupy the position were limited to the services that as "legal advisor" he provided to the deputies who they ratified him in office, the same jurist who a few months ago advocated the total elimination of electoral jurisdiction.

This is how the sentence was forged, one that finds neither logic nor any legal basis, and which already occupies a prominent place in the annals of ignominy. This couple has had to resort to the principle of specialty as a subterfuge to stretch the disastrous electoral jurisdiction, an issue that is beyond the powers of the electoral judge, which has already been rejected time and time again by the competent courts and by the United States. A ruling that throws 30 years of jurisprudence from the court itself into the garbage can. A bodrio that, as magistrate Eduardo Valdés rightly delimited in his rescue, intends to make an in-depth analysis of a principle that "is totally inadmissible in this instance and before this Court."

From the scissors of this pair of magistrates is the suit tailored to impunity, one of twisted logic and puny livelihood, to the shame of nationals and foreigners. With this action, the Electoral Court has done nothing but shield Ricardo Martinelli by preventing his trial.  - LA PRENSA, Mar. 25.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/the-path-to-impunity-1

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Outcry against Electoral Tribunal ruling favoring Martinelli

TE Judges Junca and Arauz under fire

Posted 25/03/2022

The ruling endorsed by the magistrates of the Electoral Court (TE), Heriberto Araúz, and Alfredo Juncá, in practice prevents Ricardo Martinelli from being tried for the New Business and Odebrecht cases.

Araúz and Juncá denied suspending Martinelli's criminal electoral jurisdiction, alleging the principle of specialty that is in the extradition treaty of the United States and Panama, the workhorse that the former president's legal team has brought up again and again to delay the cases in which it is linked.

Both prosecutors and judges, as well as the United States State Department itself, the country that extradited him in 2018, have said that Martinelli no longer enjoys this protection reports La Prensa.

"It is a shame and a mortal blow to the political system that was already in intensive care," said former Attorney  General Ana Matilde Gómez, "
The controversial ruling also set off the alarm of those who allege that the TE overreached and even usurped functions. The former Supreme Court judge, Harry Díaz, considers that it is necessary to "review" why two TE magistrates made a decision "so absurd and beyond their jurisdiction."

He added that here it is appropriate to present a claim of unconstitutionality so that the Court resolves the matter. The president of the Panameñista Party, José Isabel Blandón, announced that he has already asked the lawyers of his group to prepare an action of unconstitutionality. In a statement, the party warned that "there has been a misuse of power and a clear violation of constitutional norms."

Extradition Treaty
The most generalized criticism delved into the fact that magistrates Heriberto Araúz (rapporteur of the ruling) and Alfredo Juncá brought up the principle of specialty consigned in the extradition treaty between the United States and Panama.

Díaz recalled that the principle of specialty is decided by the extraditing country, so if the United States decided that it is no longer applicable to Martinelli, "there is nothing more to say." The former magistrate suggests that what is appropriate now is to present a claim of unconstitutionality against the decision made by Araúz and Juncá, and wait for the Court to resolve the issue.

A similar position is held by the former electoral prosecutor Boris Barrios, who said that the principle of specialty escapes the functions of the TE magistrates, within a review of a request to lift the electoral jurisdiction. “The TE invaded the jurisdiction of the Judicial Branch by ruling on an issue that is not within its jurisdiction,” he argued.

 Barrios also pointed out that the ruling of the TE prevents ordinary criminal justice from defining the processes that follow Martinelli for the Odebrecht and New Business cases. In fact, Martinelli and his team of lawyers have already managed to delay the hearing for the New Business case

For the former TE magistrate, Guillermo Márquez Amado, the ruling that now prevents Martinelli from being tried, "is an unlawful decision."

"The magistrates of the Electoral Court, with the cosmetic rescue of Eduardo Valdés Escoffery's vote, have wanted to help  Martinelli, despite the fact that they are against what the law says."

The Independent Movement (Movin)   said: “It is absolutely unacceptable to use the criminal electoral jurisdiction to prevent investigations and trials, especially in cases of corruption.

The Panamanian chapter of Transparency International, Tweeted “We repudiate the ruling against the law of @tepanama in favor of the criminal jurisdiction of the former president and we subscribe to rescue arguments of Mag. Valdes. Impacts to citizen confidence in TE are devastating in the face of Elections 2024″.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/outcry-against-electoral-tribunal-ruling-favoring-martinelli

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Electoral Court  ruling clears the way  for Martinelli's bid to return to power

Araúz, Juncá and Martinelli

Posted 26/03/2022

The ruling of the Electoral Court (TE) of March 22, which safeguards the criminal electoral jurisdiction of Ricardo Martinelli, would not only mean that the former President) would arrive unscathed from the action of justice to the general elections of 2024, but would show signs of where the balance would tip in the fight for control of the Democratic Change (CD) party says political analyst Edwin Cabrera in La Prensa.

He recalls that Martinelli wants to recover Democratic Change (CD), the party he created in 1998 because he is convinced that voters associate him with that group, rather than with Realizing Goals (RM), his new party, founded on March 24, 2021.

RM and CD add up, together, 441,661 adherents, according to figures from the TE.

Martinelli embarked on this political project after, in January 2018, his former foreign minister Rómulo Roux took control of CD from him with the support of 63.3% of the convention votes, while he was detained in Miami, awaiting extradition to face trial in the wiretapping case. Martinelli had been out of Panama since 2015.

"Having the CD ballot under his power is too important for him," says Cabrera. Until now, he recalls, the legal dispute over control of CD has been won by Roux against the claims of deputy Yanibel Ábrego, who distanced herself from Roux and now publicly shows her sympathy for "the boss", as his followers call him.

If to this is added,  the atomization of the opposition, one has a very favorable political map. for the former president, despite all the local and international corruption scandals in which his name comes to light.

The decision of magistrates Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá to maintain Martinelli's electoral jurisdiction in the cases of New Business and Odebrecht is supposed to be for the duration of the RM process for the election of the secretaries of youth and women, scheduled for next April 24. But as the former TE magistrate, Guillermo Márquez Amado, explains, since Martinelli left power in 2014, he has organized a chain of electoral processes, “in order to shelter himself with the electoral jurisdiction.” He did it with CD (until Roux arrived) and now he does it with RM.

In fact, that has already happened in the current electoral process of RM, which served Martinelli to invoke the controversial jurisdiction, although he is not even a candidate nor is he competing for anything at the moment. The election date was set two months after Judge Baloisa Marquínez announced that the hearing in the New Business case, in which he is accused, would be held between January 27 and 31.

“He already did and will continue to do so. He will play with the country, he will play with the institutions. There will be as many choices as you can imagine: secretary of the professionals, workers, etc., in order to keep that jurisdiction in force,” says Márquez Amado.

Araúz and Juncá went too far
Lawyer Carlos Herrera Morán points out that it is clear that Araúz and Juncá overstepped their duties, "because this is a matter for the criminal courts or the Criminal Chamber of the Court."

“In that sense, the decision of the TE has no significance in the criminal jurisdiction, but what is related to the criminal electoral jurisdiction does affect it, because this mechanism could be prolonged, protecting the accused.”

The political scientist Carlos Guevara Mann concludes that this case "has unmasked the Electoral Court as an accomplice of irregularities and theft", which shows that "the electoral system urgently needs a change".

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/electoral-court-ruling-clears-the-way-for-martinellis-bid-to-return-to-power

[Moderator_03]

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Electoral reform forum questions shield for Martinelli ruling

Posted 31/03/2022

The Citizen Forum for Electoral Reforms on Wednesday, March 30, questioned the decision of the plenary session of the Electoral Tribunal (TE) to maintain the electoral jurisdiction of former President Ricardo Martinelli and advocated the elimination of that legal figure that only “serves as a shield for candidates and elected authorities to prevent them from facing justice.”

In a statement, the Forum pointed out that the best evidence is that it only serves to shield " the legal cases that have been hindered and sometimes dismissed due to the abusive way in which this figure is used."

It also indicated that it has witnessed the "foolish and contradictory position" of the TE regarding the ruling on Martinelli's jurisdiction.  “It  analyzed issues that are not within its competence and that completely distort the original meaning of this jurisdiction, which has had and will have serious consequences for electoral political institutions."

The plenary session of the TE, through a March 22, resolution signed by Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá,   agreed to suspend a decision of the Second Administrative Electoral Court that, a month earlier, had ordered to lift the criminal jurisdiction Martinelli election. Judge Eduardo Valdés saved his vote

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/electoral-reform-forum-questions-shield-for-martinelli-ruling

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Attorney General says TE Martinelli ruling unconstitutional

Posted 01/04/2022

Javier Caraballo The Attorney General (in charge), pronounced the Resolution of March 22, 2022 of the Electoral Court (TE), which recognizes the validity of the specialty principle of the Panama-United States extradition treaty, in favor of Ricardo Martinelli, as unconstitutional reports La Prensa.

According to Caraballo, the decision endorsed by magistrates Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá, of the TE, violates five articles of the Constitution (numbers 4, 18, 32, 142 and 143, numeral 3), given that both issued a statement on an issue "Totally removed from its competency... And this led to generating an erratic motivation for the decision."

Caraballo's opinion was requested by the magistrate María Eugenia López Arias, rapporteur of the unconstitutionality lawsuit that the lawyer Héctor Herrera presented against the Resolution of March 22, 2022 of the TE, which Juncá and Araúz signed. Eduardo Valdés Escoffery saved the vote. There is another similar lawsuit, filed by Linda Guevara, whose rapporteur is Judge Maribel Cornejo.

“If the limit of the jurisdiction of the Electoral Court is established by the electoral law, it is obvious that the analysis in that seat of a subject submitted to the ordinary criminal justice, in the absence of the guarantee offered by the right to a judge predetermined by law , the right to bilaterality, the right to equality between the parties and the right to double instance, imply a clear infringement of competition”, Caraballo points out in his opinion, dated April 1.

Junca and Araúz recognized the validity of the specialty principle in favor of Martinelli, in a ruling in which they decided to maintain the criminal electoral jurisdiction of the former president. The criminal judge Baloisa Marquínez had requested the lifting of Martinelli's jurisdiction, who is being investigated for alleged money laundering in the New Business and Odebrecht cases.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/attorney-general-says-te-martinelli-ruling-unconstitutional

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Panameñista Party files lawsuit against tribunal’s Martinelli ruling

Panama Supreme Court

Posted 04/04/2022

The president of the Panameñista Party, José Isabel Blandón, has filed an unconstitutionality lawsuit against the ruling of the Electoral Court (TE), which maintains criminal jurisdiction against Ricardo Martinelli.

Blandón described this ruling as a legal bomb since, in an issue of electoral jurisdiction, the TE went on to resolve issues that correspond to the Supreme Court of Justice, such as the principle of specialty.

He argued that the Panameñista Party has been clear in opposing the electoral criminal jurisdiction as it was raised in the last Electoral Reform, but that beyond whether or not the Electoral Criminal Jurisdiction fits, what worries them is the attitude of the magistrates of the Court Electoral that come to see issues that are not their responsibility and calls into question the credibility of an institution that has been fundamental in Panama’s democracy.

Lawyer Porfirio Batista, Prosecutor of the Panameñista Party, explained that the magistrates of the Electoral Tribunal (Alfredo Juncá and Heriberto Araúz) committed an outburst and exceeded their functions since they resolved a criminal matter and their jurisdiction is clearly Electoral since the principle of specialty It is the jurisdiction of the ordinary criminal courts.

“They have to deal with the issue that if the person whose electoral jurisdiction is intended to be lifted is within an internal process and that this process could affect their internal aspirations, but what happens is that here there are two processes that we all know as the Odebrecht and New Business Case that began investigations in 2015, so getting to know the background on all old case the specialty principles does not correspond to the Electoral Court, ”.

This is the second claim of unconstitutionality against the ruling of the Electoral Court that maintains the electoral criminal jurisdiction of Martinelli.

The first was presented by the lawyer Héctor Herrera, whose action has already been formally admitted by the Judicial Branch.

The Supreme Court of confirmed that the rapporteur in the process is the president of the Supreme Court María Eugenia López who in her capacity as rapporteur, admitted the lawsuit of unconstitutionality presented by  Herrera.

In their Resolution of March 22, 2022, Araúz and Juncá considered Martinelli's defense argument valid, who alleges that he enjoys the protection of the specialty principle, established in the 1904 Extradition Treaty with the United States. Judge Eduardo Valdés Escoffery saved his vote.

Speed challenged
On, April 1, the Attorney General (in charge), Javier Caraballo, warned that the Resolution of March 22 violates at least five articles of the Constitution. Caraballo's opinion is in a document that he sent to Judge López Arias, as part of the processing of Herrera's lawsuit.

 Alfredo Vallarino, Martinelli's lawyer, questioned Caraballo's "speed" in answering the query made by López Arias. According to him, Caraballo answered the query in less than a day.

"I challenge the Supreme Court to present me, in 100 years, an appeal of unconstitutionality that has been admitted, distributed, and distributed to the Attorney General of the Nation and answered in less than a day," Vallarino emphasized.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/panamenista-party-files-lawsuit-against-tribunals-martinelli-ruling

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Another criminal complaint against Tribunal’s Martinelli ruling

José Alberto Álvarez,

Posted 06/04/2022

The president of the Country Party, José Alberto Álvarez, filed a criminal complaint with the Attorney General’s office against the magistrates of the Electoral Court (TE) Heriberto Araúz Sánchez and Alfredo Juncá for abuse of authority and violation of their duties as public officials who recently ruled in favor of the electoral criminal jurisdiction that benefits former President Ricardo Martinelli.

Álvarez also requested the separation of their position as magistrates of the TE while it is investigated. He explained that they have conclusive evidence that will accompany the complaint filed.

He said that the two magistrates exceeded the limits assigned to them by the Constitution and the law. He also asks the Attorney General, Javier Caraballo, to accept the complaint and send it to the Supreme Court that they can be removed from office while it is investigated. The document indicates that the warning and the opinion that magistrate Eduardo Valdés gave in his saving of votes was clear, punctual, and categorical when pointing out the evident excess of functions in which the denounced magistrates incurred when deciding the application of the principle of specialty coming from the Extradition Treaty signed between the Republic of Panama and the United States at the time they signed the resolution of March 22 the  Court had no jurisdiction to resolve a situation that is the power of another jurisdiction, in this case, the criminal judicial authority.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/another-criminal-complaint-against-tribunals-martinelli-ruling

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Martinelli files “persecution”  complaint against Supreme Court president

María Eugenia López Arias

Posted 07/04/2022

Alejandro Pérez, from the team of lawyers of former President Ricardo Martinelli, filed a criminal complaint on the afternoon of  Thursday, April 7, against the presiding magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, María Eugenia López Arias , for the alleged commission of crimes against the administration of justice and against public servants.

Pérez bases his complaint on alleged pressure from López Arias to alter the calendar of the hearings and set the date of the trial followed by Martinelli, for the punctures case.

He also accuses her of "accelerating" procedural phases and of ignoring stages of legal and regulatory procedures with the intention of continuing with what he called a "persecution" against Martinelli.

The lawyer pointed out that these alleged actions affect Martinelli's electoral chances in the presidential elections of May 2024. The former president, on several occasions, has proclaimed that he "has" to win the said election.

The punctures case says La Prensa is the name commonly given to the unauthorized interceptions that were carried out by the National Security Council (CSN) in the last two years of the Martinelli government (2012-2014). For these events, two former directors of the CSN were sentenced to 60 months in prison each, but Martinelli was acquitted last November.

Pérez maintains that Judge López Arias has ignored the application of the specialty principle in favor of his client. The United States Department of State has said that this principle is not valid for Martinelli, but on March 22, magistrates Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá, of the Electoral Tribunal (TE), decided otherwise. This decision has been sued for unconstitutional and Araúz and Juncá are sued for alleged excess of functions.

It is not the first time that a Martinelli lawyer has taken action against López Arias. A year ago, the complaint for alleged "manifest enmity."

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/martinelli-files-persecution-complaint-against-supreme-court-president

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Bend the knee to  ex-president or face the judicial consequences

Posted 10/04/2022

Until recently, Ukraine was not a threat to Russia. But just because it is where it is, Russia invaded it to force it to act in its interest, and now it is its enemy. Between people, however, things usually work differently. Generally, there must be a pre-existing reason for two individuals to end up as enemies. Except if one of them is Ricardo Martinelli: if he does not anticipate a genuflex attitude on the part of any person who has decision-making power in some important aspect of his political career or his judicial cases, overnight, that person could magically become his enemy. And, as if it were a country, he attacks it, regardless of whether it has declared war on him or not.

Examples of this abound. Thus, he has sued and/or challenged Isabel de Saint Malo, Farah Urrutia, Kenia Porcell, Baloisa Marquínez, Jerónimo Mejía, Harry Díaz, Eduardo Valdés Escoffery and Juan Carlos Varela. Only in the week that ended Sunday , he challenged the prosecutor Javier Caraballo and criminally denounced the magistrate María Eugenia López Arias.

The latter is accused of violating the Penal Code, to -according to him- "prevent his rise to the presidential throne in 2024." Why should we be concerned that Martinelli is persecuting public servants who, in the exercise of their functions, have a role in the eventual definition of their judicial and political affairs? Well, among other things, because of the risk that it represents for society that someone who has accumulated so much economic and political power turns into enemies (or friends...), people who are holding positions with powers capable of deciding part of their future. , to in any way remove them from their path. We must be very attentive and look everywhere, because their declarations of war are not going to bring everyone to the same battlefield.

For example, the presiding magistrate goes directly to the Credentials Commission of the National Assembly, and there is no need to explain what we should expect from that wall. Will the population perhaps have to go to the streets to demand that this endless play of legal terror cease now? We are no longer in those times when we laughed when this man jumped on the beds at carnivals or did pirouettes with Jumbo Man. This stopped being fun a while ago, and we are all paying the price. - Monica Palm, La Prensa.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/opinion/bend-the-knee-to-ex-president-or-face-the-judicial-consequences-1

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Martinelli uses TE to dodge twin criminal cases

Posted 20/04/2022

Five days after Realizing Goals (RM) will hold its elections to choose the directors of the Secretariats for Women and Youth, the president of that group, Ricardo Martinelli, notified the Electoral Court (TE) of the holding of an extraordinary national congress.

In this way, the criminal electoral jurisdiction that Martinelli currently enjoys, investigated for alleged money laundering in the New Business and Odebrecht cases, could be extended reports La Prensa.

Just one day after a bulletin from the National Directorate of Electoral Organization (DNOE) published the list of voting centers for the election in the two secretariats, next Sunday, April 24, this same entity received a note this Tuesday, signed by Martinelli himself, in which he communicates that the "vacancy" has occurred due to the resignation of several members of the RM board of directors. Therefore, he is convoking an extraordinary congress, whose calendar and regulations have not yet been decided.

Martinelli warns in his note that he is simply notifying about the celebration of these events because, as he states, the DNOE does not have the power to reject or approve the call.

Martinelli avoided the hearing of the New Business process alleging that he had criminal electoral jurisdiction due to his position as president of RM, a party that had scheduled internal elections for next May 24.

The third liquidator judge of criminal cases Baloisa Marquínez asked the TE to withdraw this legal armor, but in a resolution dated March 22, the TE magistrates Heriberto Araúz and Alfredo Juncá decided to maintain the jurisdiction, alleging that Martinelli is protected by the principle of specialty and, consequently, he avoids prosecution in the New Business and Odebrecht cases.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/martinelli-uses-te-to-dodge-twin-criminal-cases

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Supreme Court upholds New Business ruling

Posted 20/04/2022

The Supreme Court has confirmed a decision of the First Court of Justice that did not grant an Amparo of constitutional guarantees presented by former President Ricardo Martinelli in the New Business case, a process that follows the track of the purchase of Editora Panamá América SA presumably with public funds.

The Court endorsed a decision of the First Court of Justice, which in turn upheld the decision of the third judge, liquidator of criminal cases, Baloisa Marquínez, not to accept a controversial incident against the inquiry order issued against Martinelli in the case.

Martinelli's defense argued that Marquínez's decision violated the principle of specialty that he would enjoy and that it would prevent him from being prosecuted for a cause other than the puncture case, from which he was acquitted.

But the ruling, which bears the signature of María Eugenia López, presiding magistrate of the Court, alleges that the alleged principle was invoked in the appeal filed against the decision of the First Superior Court, which did not admit the Amparo, but not so in the incident of controversy resolved by Marquínez.

In addition, it indicates that the Amparo contains incomplete information on the appeals filed before the court and the First Court.

On January 28, Marquínez was forced to suspend the preliminary hearing in this case, because Martinelli claimed to have criminal electoral jurisdiction due to the internal elections of his Realizing Goals party. Then Marquínez asked the Electoral Court (TE) to lift the jurisdiction of the former president, but the TE, through a resolution dated March 22, maintained that protection on the grounds that the accused would be covered by the principle of specialty. This decision of the TE is the subject of two claims of unconstitutionality before the Court, resources that were accumulated in one and whose rapporteur is López.

In turn, Martinelli's defense denounced López before the National Assembly.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/supreme-court-upholds-new-business-ruling

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71% of Panamanians  reject TE decision on Martinelli

Posted 20/04/2022

Some71% of Panamanians questioned by the Gismo Services, SA in a survey, prepared for La Estrella de Panamá, disagree with the decision of the Electoral Tribunal to revoke an earlier decision to lift the electoral criminal jurisdiction of former President Ricardo Martinelli. The survey took a sample of 1,800 Panamanians in all provinces plus the Ngäbe Buglé region and was conducted between April 6 and 10.

Judges Heriberto Araúz (speaker) and Alfredo Juncá endorsed the ruling arguing the existence of the specialty principle, by which the former president was extradited from the United States, so as not to be investigated for crimes other than the case of the punctures, in which Martinelli was found not guilty.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/71-of-panamanians-reject-te-decision-on-martinelli

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 Supreme Court rulings  a setback for Martinelli defense

Posted 21/04/2022

In the last 48 hours, Pamama’s Supreme Court of Justice has ruled on two legal appeals filed by lawyers of former President Ricardo Martinelli.

Both edicts constitute setbacks for the defense of Martinelli in lawsuits reports TVN. As stated in edict 464, the plenary session of the Supreme Court of Justice did not admit the action for protection of constitutional guarantees filed by the jurist Carlos Carrillo Gomila against edict No. 21-3054,

through which the First Superior Court of the First Judicial district did not give course to a previous lawsuit filed against Baloisa Marquínez, judge of the case "New Business".

As for the decree 465, the Plenum of the Supreme Court rejected a challenge of proceedings challenging the position taken by the prosecutor Javier Caraballo, who qualified as unconstitutional the decision of the Tribunal Electoral not to lift the electoral jurisdiction to Martinelli claiming the validity of the principle of specialty. The businessman was extradited in 2018.

The decisions of the Supreme Court of Justice occur at a time when the 2024 political campaign is taking shape and Martinelli, in his role as president of the Realizing Goals party seeks to cling to an electoral jurisdiction to avoid his appearance as a defendant. to the hearings scheduled within the “ New Business ” and “ Odebrecht.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/supreme-court-rulings-a-setback-for-martinelli-defense

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Guatemala court orders return of Martinelli jet

Posted 29/04/2022

A Guatemalan court ordered the return of a small plane seized in 2021 from former Panama president Ricardo Martinelli but the aircraft will still remain under the tutelage of a Property Forfeiture court.

The decision to dismiss the seizure of the plane was made on April 21 by the Ninth Criminal Court for Drug Trafficking, which investigated for the alleged transfer of narcotics, at the request of the United States. However, after finding no, only administrative faults, the Ninth Criminal Court for Drug Activity decreed "the return of the jet-type plane",

According to the judiciary, the representative of the Public Ministry in the process, Enrique Sosa Ordóñez, "did not oppose the return" of the aircraft "as long as it was as a deposit" because "there is an investigation pending by another prosecution".According to judicial sources, the other prosecutor's office referred to by the Public Ministry is the Domain Extinction, which has an open process to transfer the aircraft to the possession of the State of Guatemala.

The aircraft, registration N799 RM, was seized on February 26, 2021, at the time Martinelli's wife arrived in Guatemala, where her sons, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique Martinelli Linares, were in prison, awaiting extradition to the US on charges of money laundering.

The extradition of both was completed at the end of 2021 and the two brothers remain in prison in the United States.

The plane was seized at the La Aurora international airport, located in Guatemala City, when several relatives of the Martinelli brothers, in addition to their mother, were traveling to visit them in the prison where they had been held since 2020.

The Property Forfeiture Law was approved in 2010 in Guatemala and allows local authorities to permanently confiscate assets of illicit origin.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/guatemala-court-orders-return-of-martinelli-jet

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Ex-lover says Martinelli used Pegasus to spy on her

Posted 05/05/2022

Ex-president Ricardo Martinelli was acquitted in November of illegal  interception of communications,  but a former girlfriend told a Mallorca judge that he used the Pegasus computer espionage team after leaving office.

Indira Brunot told the judge about the monitoring and surveillance to which she was subjected, at least since 2016, when - she ended the affair with Martinelli -she noticed her communications being intercepted on a trip she took to Orlando.

Despite having ended the  relationship, she maintained contact with Martinelli since she acknowledged that he paid her 8,000 euros a month ($8,410) for "various consulting work."

"Martinelli, affirmed, he had bought the Pegasus computer program in Israel", cites a note from Diario de Mallorca , published on May 5.

According to the Mallorcan newspaper, the woman testified by videoconference from Miami (where she usually resides) two days ago, in a procedure conducted by the Investigating Court Number 2 of Palma. She said she was willing to provide all the WhatsApp messages related to the investigation, including her communications with Martinelli. The former president -according to the note in Diario - "has not been officially located and, therefore, has not been summoned to testify ."

Harassment probe
Martinelli is investigated in Mallorca for alleged espionage and harassment of Brunot, a case for which 11 people were arrested (including four Civil  Guard agents, and personnel from the Group Kougar agency ), last March.

According to the newspaper El País and AFP, Martinelli appears in another case for alleged corruption in the contracts awarded to the FCC construction company

Martinelli appeared by videoconference, although he refused to answer the investigators' questions.

In the investigation carried out in Palma, the detainees confessed that they watched and followed the woman on the beach and in a boat, at the instruction of Martinelli, to find out if she had a relationship with another man while vacationing on the island, in the summer of 2020. She reported the events up to three times. The detainees tried to explain that they were providing an escort and security service; she replied that she never consented to such attentions.

Little by little, the judge has released most of the detainees on bail, although the founder of Grupo Kougar remains under arrest.

The newspaper Última Hora reported that the judge indicated that "there are indications of the commission of a plurality of crimes by the person under investigation

The Martinelli government acquired the Pegasus spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group in 2010. The team worked until May 2014.

Martinelli was arrested in Miami and extradited to Panama, but in November 2021 he was acquitted by a court of three judges. While he was detained in El Renacer, in preventive arrest, he received a visit from Brunot.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/ex-lover-says-martinelli-used-pegasus-to-spy-on-her