Politicized police run by friends of the president former director

Panama’s security forces, especially the National Police (PN) need to be depoliticized says a former director of the now defunct Judicial Technical Police (PTJ)

Jaime Abad questioned the fact that at present the authorities who are in charge of public security sectors are civilians who have no knowledge of security and safety.

He said that they are only there because they are friends of the president, Ricardo Martinelli.
"While presidents are putting civilians to administer the police they are only going to go take care of the government and not the public," said the lawyer on the RPC Radio program Questioning the facts.
The former official said he is concerned that those civilians who in the past came in by the back door of the PN and all the institutions that made up the security forces of the country, have now entered through the front door because “they are friends of the president … If this continues the PN will be broken” he said.