Martinelli defense hits rock in court move
ANOTHER ATTEMPT by Ricardo Martinelli defense lawyers to keep their client out of court, ran aground on Tuesday, March 8 when Jeronimo Mejia, judge of guarantees in the Supreme Court trial of the former President over the purchase of dehydrated food, declared “inadmissible” the request to declare the process invalid.
They argued that judicial proceedings were without prior authorization.
The judge ruled that the prosecutor’s inquiries into Martinelli bank accounts of, were not of a judicial nature.
Following the decision, the prosecutor ,Judge Oyden Ortega, has a free hand to further investigate Martinelli.
Mejia said the prosecutor did not violate process and the defense submission was unfounded, Martinelli is facing charges of alleged irregularities in the $45 million purchase of dehydrated food through the former National Assistance Program, (PAN). The defense said the steps taken by the prosecutor, Judge Oyden Ortega to examine the bank accounts called for the case to be annulled.
“It is inadmissible because the disputed proceedings have no nature of judicial proceedings,” Mejía concluded at the end of the hearing.
Sidney Sitton had argued that the prosecutor acted without prior permission of the investigating judge.
Ortega Ortega said that all the banks contacted by his office provided the required information promptly.
No measures of inspection, seizures or abductions were carried out, “in which case no other prior judicial review of guarantees would be required,” he said.
He added that the bank information requested is not related to Martinelli or his companies, but with the accounts of the company Lerkshore International Limited, a supplier of dehydrated foods which supplied PAN, at a cost of $44.5 million.
“The sole purpose was to know the final destination of transactions,” he said.