Former Martinelli ally confirms spy activies

WHILE former president Ricardo Martinelli remains silent about the purchase and use of disappeared phone tapping equipment bought by the National Security Council (NSC) for $13.4 million a former ally has confirmed it was bought and used.

The former Minister of the Presidency Demetrio Papadimitriu, who was one of those responsible for purchasing it said “The equipment arrived and was there. What happened to that equipment? I don’t know. But the it was purchased and received, “he said.
Papdimitriu said that the purchase was made at the suggestion of the Israeli company MLM, hired to train monitors by Martinelli. It was made in July 2010 following a national security crisis.
During that month the protests in Bocas del Toro against the “sausage” law was handled with an iron fist by the Martinelli administration. Several in opposition to this law accused the government of being tapped. Protesters were shot and jilled and others blinded by buckshot.
A few months after buying the equipment, Martinelli’s government granted asylum to Maria del Pilar Hurtado, the former spy boss in Colombia during the administration of Alvaro Uribe accused of wiretapping government critics.
According to its organic law, the Security Council reports directly to the President.
Martinelli has not responded calls for his reactions on the subject in which his in-law, Alejandro Garuz, the last Secretaryr of the Council is involved., reports La Prensa.
The secretary general of the Union of Journalists of Panama, Philemon Medina, and former Secretary of the NSC Garuz participated on in a confrontation with the Fifth Circuit Prosecutor’s Office as part of the process against the former official for assaulting the journalist.
Garuz denied physically attacked Medina, who, in turn, reiterated that he suffered spinal injuries. The incident occurred on June 11, 2013, after the arrest of two journalists of TVN.