Hospital promise a mask to profit Martinelli court papers

THE DEAL reached by Italian fixer Valter Lavítola of 11 months jail for international corruption in Panama is not enough according to the judges.

 In what ex-President Ricardo Martinelli, likes to call an “Italian Soap Opera,” The Judicial College of the Court of Naples has not validated the agreement between the prosecution and the defense of the accused, who had agreed less than a year in prison for the sole defendant -Lavítola- for attempting to divert up to $22 million in bribes for the building of a pediatric hospital in Veraguas, originally promised by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Judges have passed the buck back to the prosecutor Vincenzo Piscitelli , after considering that there is a miscalculation because in this case concur “aggravating circumstances” that have not been considered, argued the judges..
This situation, very strange in judicial practice, reports La Prensa, also happened in the trial for the crime of extortion of company Impregilo, by Lavítola, but after checking with the previous government of former President Ricardo Martinelli.
Prosecutor Piscitelli then asked one year and two months in prison for Lavítola, but the Judicial College of the Sixth Section of the Court of Naples finally sentenced him to three years in prison.
The final decision on the latest conviction will probably be known in March next year, the month in which the Government of Panama wull also take a decision on pursuing charges based on the arguments of the Italian courts.
According to court papers of the case to which La Prensa, had access “the promise of Impregilo to assume the economic charges relating to the conduct of pediatric hospital [de Veraguas], in exchange for the award of the work of Metro de Panama, was nothing but a mask to indirectly offer President [Ricardo] Martinelli, through a businessman closely linked to him [the US Rogelio Oruña], undue economic profit “.
In addition, Lavítola faces two other lawsuits linked with Panama.
In the Court of Rome he is accused – together with commercial former Finmeccanica commercial director Paolo Pozzessere- for allegedly diverting $25 million in bribes for contracts signed by the Italian company with Panama.
He is also under investigation in Naples Court for allegedly diverting $ 20 million in the construction of modular prisons by the company Svemark and other $26 million cost overruns.