Former president presents affidavit to bribery scandal investigator

Former Panamanian President Ernesto Perez Balladares presented a 20 page affidavit before the Public Prosecutor on Friday during the investigation into the scandal of the alleged payment of bribes to legislators for approval of the Multimodal Industrial and Service Center, (CEMIS) in 2002.

Perez Balladares was accompanied by his lawyer Luis Carlos Cabezas
The former president stated that all he knows of the alleged negotiations approved in the Assembly in 2002, is contained in videos delivered in July 2009 by the then Attorney’s General Ana Matilde Gomez, a source told La Prensa.
Perez Balladares was notified of the summons by Undersecretary of Public Prosecutions, Beatriz Castanet, at his residence in the district of San Francisco.
In some of the videos, which have already been made public and which are of very poor audio quality, current government deputy Carlos Afu is seen in an armchair talking to Pérez Balladares with a third man who cannot be identified.
According to the recordings, Afu informs the former president of ”secret negotiations " to approve the controversial project.
Gomez has delivered the videos to the Supreme Court.{jathumbnail off}