Spotlight hovers over ex tourism boss
FORMER TOURISM manager Salomon Shamah, widely believed to be the mover behind the Democratic Change dirty tricks program during the last election, is now in the eye of Anticorruption, Zuleyka Moore.
Shamah had the ear of ex-president Ricardo Martinelli even after losing his US visa following allegations of investigations by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
Recent developments link them both to the Financial Pacific scandal.
Moore is calling for the five -year jail sentence recently handed down to former Oversight Director of the Superintendency of Markets, (SMV)Ignacio Fabrega to be increased to eight, as he put the stock market at risk in Panama.
On September 3, Fábrega was sentenced for official corruption after verifying that he gave confidential information to Financial Pacific (FP), when it was investigated by the SMV.
Moore, argued that the judge explained the legal reasons for discretion to apply the five -year sentence, but that did not take into account the extent of the injury and the damage committed . Fábrega evaded criminal proceedings,(he was a fugitive for more than four months). At the trial, held on 25 August, the prosecutor demanded the maximum sentence of eight years.
That day, Fabrega spoke for about 20 minutes. He revealed that former President Ricardo Martinelli and Salomón Shamah, meeting at the presidency, asked him to avoid the intervention of FP and said the then head of the SMV Juan Manuel Martans knew all their actions. Copies of his statements went to the Supreme Court for the investigation of Martinelli. Moore asked for certified copies to be sent for investigation of all who were mentioned by Fabrega. “It cannot be possible that despite the seriousness of the accusations made by Fabrega, the community at large to go unanswered,” she said.
In a letter Mayté Pellegrini, former employee of FP, written whens he was in jail, said she had not been released because she “had to pay a million dollars to [Salomon] Salo Shamah, which I did.”
“It is totally false that I intervened,” Shamah said at the time. Shamah was also seen with West Valdes, director of FP, in the days when the scandal broke. On the night of January 8, 2013, he delivered an envelope to Valdes in the Bristol hotel.
Fabrega said he received direct instructions of then President Martinelli, that the situation at FP was to be handled with discretion and to assist “ in any way I could,” he said. His lawyer has requested a reduction of the sentence on the grounds that his client gave a statement (in the trial) in which he linked others. In addition, he said, Fabrega it has no criminal record and is a 69-year-old hypertensive
