Martinelli troika meets in Bogota
TVN NEWS on Sunday Feb.7, showed images of a meeting between the former tourism manager Salomon Shama, Ricardo Martinelli and CD mouthpiece, Luis Eduardo Camacho, and attorney Alejandro Perez, part of the legal team trying to head off multiple charges of corruption against the former president.
Meanwhile, Martinelli continues playing cat and mouse with prosecutors and judges as he holds court, in his lavish Miami bunker, leaving puzzled observers to speculate why a man with so many charges pending is still at liberty, while some 40 minor fish, many detained, are facing trials that could see them facing long prison senences.
Shamah was Martinelli’s Svengali , creating the election campaign and the associated dirty tricks program that propelled the magnate to the presidency.
The dirty tricks continued throughout his term leaving the ex-president facing charges of wiretapping political opponents, judges and journalists, that could carry a 20 year sentence if convicted.
Shamah is also linked with to the maze of events in the Financial Pacific (FP) brokerage scandal which rumbles on like a never-ending TV whodunit with
In August 2015, the former director of the Superintendency of Securities (SMV) Ignacio Fabrega, told the First Criminal Court that Shamah and Martinelli gave instructions for handling confidential information in the SMV for Financial Pacific and disbursed millions for a controlling stake in the brokerage.
Fábrega admitted leaking confidential information to managers of FP during the past administration, and said the maneuver was orchestrated under orders from Martinelli and Shamah.
Fábrega used his position within the SMV to benefit FP , during a $12 million embezzlement scandal.
Meanwhile, Mayte Pellegrini, the only one charged in the FP case , is under house arrest , has reiterated in several interviews with TVN News that “Shamah was involved in the irregularities of thebrokerage” and said he asked for “$1 million for her release,” when she was detained behind bars for two years.
She also claimed that then Attorney General, now Supreme Court president, Ayu Prado, promising her freedom, drafted a retraction of her revelations of Martinelli’s link to a secret FP account used to manipulate the shares of Petaquilla Minerals.
The case also features the mysterious disappearance of the SMV auditor who lifted the lid off the FP barrel of snakes, who is widely believed to be dead; the daylight stabbing of another investigator; and the abrupt resignation of an SMV director facing threats
Meanwhile, Camacho one of the strongest supporters of Martinelli, accompanied by others from the perversely named Democratic Changparty has frequently visited Martinelli in Miami and has led the charge denigrating the overworked prosecutors seeking to bring dozens of Martinell linked malefactors to trial.
The CD, with the founder away, is facing an internal crisis. Alma Cortés who was recently appointed president was rejected by the party deputies Is fear of the capo’s wrath fading?
Perez is part of a battery of at least 15 lawyers including Cortés, building hurdles for prosecutors .
Martinelli, the take-no-prisoners former ruler won’t return to Panama because according to him and his defense, his rights are being violated in the processes followed by the Supreme Court, peppered with his own appointees.
Will there ever be a court room finale to wind up the twisted narrative that Martinelli would likely dub a soap opera? Will more of the fall men, follow the lead of some of the earlier players and try to reduce their sentences by revealing a smoking gun or the missing link? Stay tuned. The play’s not over yetand it seems all the world’s a stage.
