The former presidents of Panama Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014) and Juan Carlos Varela (2014 2019) will go to trial along with 34 other people accused of money laundering in the Odebrecht case, a process that is scheduled to begin in August 2023.
(Also: This is the ‘prison regime’ to which gang members will be subjected in El Salvador)
According to judicial documents to which EFE had access this Tuesday, on the list of 36 defendants called to trial are former presidents Martinelli and Varela, and the two sons of the first, Ricardo Alberto and Luis Enrique, both imprisoned in the United Stateswhere they confessed that they received bribes from Odebrecht.
(You can read: Oil exploitation, the point that confronts Gustavo Petro and Lula da Silva)
The Judicial Branch reported on Monday night that a court decided to call 36 people to trial for alleged money laundering in the Odebrecht case, without identifying them, but specifying that the process was scheduled from August 1 to 18, 2023 as the main date, and from September 27 to October 17, 2023 as the alternate.
In the judicial document to which EFE had access, the former Ministers of Public Works Jaime Ford and Federico Suárez also appear called to trial for money laundering; of Economy Frank De Lima; of the Presidency Demetrio Papadimitriu, and the Housing and former presidential candidate José Domingo Arias, who held public office during the Martinelli Government. In addition, Carlos Duboy, the former Minister of Housing during the Government of Varela.
(Also: Dritan Rexhepi, the new ‘cocaine king’ who operates from a prison in Ecuador)
The Public Ministry (MP, Prosecutor’s Office) said this Tuesday in a brief message on its social networks that it achieved “the call to trial for 36 people, including 2 former presidents of the Republic, 6 former ministers, 2 sons of a former president (2009-2014 ), and other former officials, businessmen and individuals for money laundering” for the Odebrecht case.
Judge Baloísa Marquínez, head of the Third Liquidator Court for Criminal Cases, ruled through Joint Order number 9 “to open a criminal case against 35 people accused of crimes against economic order, in the form of money laundering,” the Body reported last night. Judicial.
(See also: Thief on a motorcycle was shot at the hands of a police officer who was in civilian clothes)
Also the “call to trial against a citizen investigated for the crime Against the National Economy, in the form of money laundering (the latter due to the applicable regulations at the time the events occurred),” he added.
In its letter on Monday, the Judicial Branch specified that Judge Marquínez provisionally dismissed 11 people and permanently dismissed one for money laundering, that in the list to which EFE had access, she appears identified as María Bagatelas de Papadimitriu, mother of the former minister who will go to trial for this same crime.
The preliminary hearing of this process was held from September 12 to 28. Prosecutor Mahmad Daud Hasan asserted that the Brazilian construction company, which arrived in Panama in 2006 and was for several years the main contractor of the State, paid “bribes left and right” in the country.
In July 2017, Odebrecht signed an agreement with the Panamanian Prosecutor’s Office to pay a fine of 220 million dollars to the State in 12 years, which is not being complied with.
EFE
#Odebrecht #presidents #Panama #Martinelli #Varela #trial