Freed Martinelli clique under fire

THE  14 MEMBERS of  ex-president  Ricardo Martinelli’s inner circle who walked free after a court ruling,  should be investigated for money laundering says the National Assembly prosecutor who sent ex-Supreme Court Judge Moncada Luna to jail.

Deputy  Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, prosecutor in the process that led to a plea bargain  and ended with the dismissal and imprisonment of Moncada Luna was referring  on TV to a judgment of the Second Criminal High Court.

The decision  quashed the investigation of  Nicolas Corcione Perez Balladares (current member of the the Panama Canal Authority board), Felipe Virzi Alejandro Lopez, Ricardo Alberto Calvo Latorraca and Maria del Pilar Fernandez de Moncada Luna among others.

Gonzalez agreed with the statement by Judge Luis Mario Carrasco in his dissenting opinion on the decision signed on September 23 which annulled that process.

“The agreement [penalty] was  applicable only to the judge who was being investigated, not the rest of the people involved in the facts,” Gonzalez, told TVN Channel 2.

Thedecision of judges Wilfredo Saenz (rapporteur) and Maria De Lourdes Estrada also benefited Alberto Ortega Maltez, Felipe Antonio Rodriguez Guardia , Humberto Elias Juarez Barahona, Maria Gabriela Reyna Lopez, Mauricio Antonio Ortiz Quesada, Claudio Poma Murialdo Sonmaruga, Oscar Ivan Rivera, Francisco Feliu Nigaglioni, Jorge Enrique Espino Mendez and Julian Rodriguez Paris.

Gonzalez agreed to a “sentencing deal t” with Moncada Luna in which recognized the commission of two crimes (unjust enrichment and falsifying public documents) in exchange for a sentence of 60 months imprisonment.

He was not prosecuted for the other two crimes investigated: money laundering and corruption of officials.

“That was one of the charges which we investigated and under the agreement, as is established by the relevant article of the Criminal Procedure Code was one of the charges dismissed”  he said. However, he made clear that the agreement only benefits Moncada Luna not others.

“I have a position that coincides with [Carrasco], that the rest of the people should be investigated,” he said.

Saenz and Estrada now face criminal charges for the alleged commission of crimes against public administration, corruption of a public servant and / or collusion.