More corruption allegations as Attorney General delegates investigation

Panama’s stand-in Attorney General Giuseppe Bonissi, will remain in place in spite of the escalating corruption scandal surrounding the Public Ministry  he heads.

This was made clear Tuesday (December 21), six days after the scandal surfaced. It involves the release of four defendants in a drug trafficking case and involves at least three senior members of the Public Ministry

In an attempt to quieten the voices calling for his resignation, Bonissi has said he will step aside from the investigation of the case. Political analysts have said that this was an opportunity for President Ricardo Martinelli to let Bonissi go and appoint a permanent Attorney General.
Bonissi was moved in to supplant the former AG, Ana Matilde Gomez who was ousted and convicted for authorizing the tapping of a cell phone used by a criminal prosecutor who was being investigated for allegedly accepting bribes. Her sentencing and firing was widely believed to be political persecution.
Recently, Panama granted asylum to the former head of Colombia’s secret police, who was being investigated for wide scale wire tapping of judges, journalists and political opponents
Bonissi said that if the Criminal Chamber of the Court authorizes him to investigate the general secretary of the government crime Agency, Nedelka Diaz, he will delegate the task to the assistant prosecutor, Angel Calderón.
He has dismissed drug prosecutor of Herrera and Los Santos, Milagros Valdés (currently, the only one arrested); and the former head of the Human Resources Office Eva Lorentz (now in Austria) and the lawyer José Ballesteros, who is a fugitive.
Ballesteros, according to the statement of ex prosecutor Valdes, urged the release favor of four defendants for drug trafficking.
Lorentz has acknowledged that Ballesteros is the lawyer in a family case.
On Tuesday from London, Diaz made strong accusations against Bonissi.
Speaking on Rangefinder, she said did not know Valdes and she  had not been instructed  to release the alleged drug traffickers as she was not the prosecutor in the investigation.
She asked for a polygraph test and a face to face meeting with Valdes who she said had been imprisoned for three days, and the confession was extorted "under the threat of getting stuck and to avoid seeing her daughter get "tangled in the case."
Diaz said she wants to come to Panama to "face" the charges and asked for intervention of the president, Ricardo Martinelli, with whom she wants to have an "audience" along with the Ombudsman, the Church and civil society, to stop "this wave of lawlessness."
Martinelli has been silent, throughout although he eleced Bonissi as Deputy Attorney in February.
Secretary of Statespokesman, Alfredo Prieto, said the appointment of a permanent Attorney General is not on the agenda of the Cabinet or the Assembly 
On the same television station, Lorentz accused Bonissi adviser, Naphtali Jaén, of "manipulating the evidence" of irregularities. The cited "irregularities"  refer to the absence of Jaen and Beatriz Castaneda, the undersecretary of the MP, who according to Lorentz, were absent for "five, seven, nine days, without even sending a note." They are never discounted wages.

Lorentz expressed her wish to return to Panama, but said the airport in Vienna is closed by snow "I am dying of cold," she said.
 Luis H. Moreno of the Panamanian Foundation of Ethics and Civics said there is now a "sense of chaos and corruption within the Public Ministry (MP).

On Rangefinder Report, Moreno said that this perception is not due to a single event but a "series of cases related or independent. " These situations lead to a distrust of public statements” he said.

Moreno added that if the president, were to appoint a permanent attorney general to replace Bonissi, it "would be an act of great political courage and appreciated by the community." {jathumbnail off}