New man named to Attorney General hot seat

DECEMBER 27. Panama’s new Attorney General will be Jose Ayu Prado, until now the special prosecutor against organized crime.

The almost unanimous decision was made at an afternoon Cabinet meeting.

He will move on to  the hot seat to replace Giuseppe Bonissi, who resigned in the midst of a crisis in the Public Ministry after a scandal over the alleged penetration of the prosecutor’s office by organized crime.

He will have to decide on whether to follow through on Bonissi's plan to subject all district prosecutors to a polygraph test and perhaps Bonissi himself.

Civil society groups who met with President Ricardo Martinelli had wanted to have a role in the selection of the new AG, but were told that Martinelli already had the "name " of the person who would replace Bonissi